Meet Our New NaNo Interns, Kristen and Nick!

We feel super lucky here at NaNo HQ to be able to work with some excellent interns! Today, meet Operations Intern Kristen Sibbald and Editorial Intern Nick Fierro, the newest additions to our team. You’ll be getting to know them better as a co-hosts of Virtual Write-Ins throughout November, but today these two Bay Area natives are sharing the importance of “keeping the familiar strange”, as well as some hearty cheering for everyone participating in NaNo this year:

From Kristen:

Hey writers! I’ve just returned to my native Bay Area to start this internship, after four years in Southern California studying at the perpetually sunny Scripps College. It’s a strange adjustment to be back, but I’m also excited to work with the amazing folks at NaNoWriMo and to have fog in my life again.

I’ve always been plagued by wanderlust and the desire to search for stories, and it’s taken me to some interesting places. For instance, in my studies of Latin America I’ve travelled around Nicaragua, studied youth culture in Cuba, and investigated border development in Costa Rica.

But since I’ve been back in the Bay, where I grew up, I now see it in a different light, with the perspectives I’ve picked up from my travels and studies and relationships. And I’ve realized that it’s important to keep the familiar strange, to notice the life and culture in the places where I already am. These insights are, to me, more valuable than the perspectives of an American commenting on the seemingly strange customs of another nation. I find that my observations often tell me more about my own perspective and sense of normality than about the things and people I’m observing. As I re-explore my favorite places from childhood and continue to learn in this internship, I’m excited to challenge myself to interrogate my existing ideas. Maybe I’ll incorporate the experience into my NaNoWriMo novel in November.

When I’m not scribbling in a notebook or daydreaming in a coffee shop, I like to draw badly, grow flowers, defend the Oxford comma, and bake cakes.

From Nick:

Hey folks! My name is Nick Fierro, and I’m so pleased to be your Programs Intern for the fall!

I’m a Northern California native, and a recent returnee after a 4-year stint at Washington University in St. Louis, where I studied Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology (one major). Although both the Bay Area and NaNoWriMo are familiar territory to me, this marks my first time celebrating NaNo from “behind the scenes” at the Office of Letters & Light.

A few facts about myself:

They say every person has three things they can talk about for hours with no end in sight. My three things are breakfast cereals, fluffy dogs, and animated movies.
I lived in Scotland for six months during my junior year of college. I arrived a bright-eyed Californian with dreams of Nessie, kilts, and castles, and left with a deathly pallor and an appetite for haggis. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

In recent years, I’ve been focusing on writing more nonfiction, including journalism, culinary writing, and satire (often combining the three). However, fantasy was and remains my first and greatest love.

Like so many of you, my first experience with NaNoWriMo could be described like an elaborate smoothie: one part intellectual curiosity, one part self-betterment, one part sheer terror, seven parts coffee, and a shot of adrenaline––sprinkled, of course, with a deep love of all things writing. Although that smoothie didn’t win any taste-tests, NaNoWriMo was one of the first creative outlets I had where I felt like my efforts were really building towards something––even if that “something” was still a work in progress.

I’m looking forward to lending a helping hand to the NaNo team and standing alongside them as November fast approaches. I’m still unsure what this year’s novel will be, but rest assured I’ll be pantsing––or perhaps plantsing––alongside each and every one of you. Most of all, I’m excited to join in cheering on the hundreds of thousands of writers who will participate in NaNo this year, so for those about to write, I salute you.