• Best Writing on a Blog
• Best Arts and Culture Blog
• Best City or Neighbourhood Blog
• Best New Blog
• Best Personal Blog

Now in its fourth year, the annual awards recognise the best of Manchester’s online writing. Eligible blogs submitted by the close of nominations on September 18 will be narrowed down to a shortlist in each category, and then a judging panel will select the winners, which will be announced at the Manchester Blog Awards event on the evening of Wednesday, October 21.

Held each October as part of the Manchester Literature Festival, the awards event has grown in popularity every year and this year it will move to an exciting new home: Band on the Wall on Swan Street. We think this iconic Manchester venue is the ideal place to celebrate some of the city’s most talented independent voices.

This year’s event will feature Jenn Ashworth, a former blog award winner and the author of A Kind of Intimacy (Arcadia) will read her work and talk about blogging and writing. There will be readings from the best and brightest of the city’s bloggers, stepping out from behind their screens for one night only. And the event will be soundtracked by Blogapalooza, a live stream of music mixed by the city’s mp3 bloggers. For booking information, please visit the Blog Awards website.
The Manchester Blog Awards is supported by both Arts Council England North West and MDDA – Manchester Digital Development Agency, part of Manchester City Council.

Stephen Baker, Head of Communications and Marketing at Arts Council England North West, said: “Digital technology has an increasingly important effect on how readers relate to literature and over the last three years the Manchester Blog Awards have recognised and supported the high quality of writing across the city’s blogging communities. We are delighted to be supporting the awards in 2009.”

Each year, The Manchester Blog Awards celebrates the best self-published online writing in the city. Since the first event at Urbis in 2006, the blog awards has significantly contributed to Manchester’s image within the UK and internationally as a city on the digital cutting edge, and as a place where ordinary people are engaging with technology in creative ways.

The current renaissance of online lit projects in Manchester such as Rainy City Stories and the live literature night “No point in not being friends” has its roots in the lively new tech-friendly writing scene that the Blog Awards and Manchester Literature Festival’s Freeplay strand of programming (of which it is a part) have helped establish.

Three previous Manchester Blog Award winners have gone on to get book contracts, and several more have gone on to have their writing featured in national newspapers and media outlets. Each of these writers acknowledges the profile-raising power of the blog awards as a benefit to their work.

More information

For the latest updates on the Manchester Blog Awards, subscribe via the website at manchesterblogawards.com, or follow us on Twitter at @mcrblogawards.

For more information email info@manchesterblogawards.com, or phone MBA Director Kate Feld on 07960 285891.

Twitter is a social networking site that is seeing a huge surge in interest thanks to both its adoption by celebrities like Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry and the fact that it is frequently breaking news before the mainstream media  – recent examples include the Hudson River plane crash and the Mumbai bombings.  It allows users to connect with others and build a network by sending and receiving short messages called tweets.

Here’s more information on what Twitter is, or watch a video explaining Twitter in plain language.

The Manchester Twestival which is sponsored by digital communications agency Code Computer Love and is taking place at The Living Room, will bring together users of Twitter for an evening social event that will include a charity auction.  All money raised by Twestival globally will be donated to charity:water, a charity that works to bring safe and clean drinking water to those in developing countries.

Commenting on Manchester Twestival, organiser Katie Moffat said, “Personally I’m not aware of any other event that has been held simultaneously across the world in this way.  No one working on Twestival  is getting paid, everyone is fitting in the organisation of the events around their jobs and other commitments; to me, the enthusiasm and dedication to make every city Twestival a success, is a clear demonstration of the power a social network like Twitter has to mobilise a group of people into action

“In Manchester, we’ve had a fantastic response from individuals wanting to help and I’d also like to say a big thank you to the team at Code Computerlove who are sponsoring the event.  Thanks to them we can put on a great night and be sure that every penny made goes straight to charity.”

The Manchester Twestival will be held on February 12 from 6.30pm at the Living Room, Deansgate.  Tickets are available on http://www.amiando.com/twestivalmanchester.  You can get all the updates at the website http://manchester.twestival.com or via @MancTwester on Twitter.

More information

For further information please contact Katie Moffat on 07590 122203 or email katie@kmmedia.co.uk