• 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.

The workshops are led by Kate Feld, director of the Manchester Blog Awards and writer of The Manchizzle blog, and Chris Horkan, a web designer and journalist who writes the Mancubist blog.

All sessions are free, but numbers are limited so please book in advance.

Blog Lab

Stuck on posting images in Blogger? Need someone to walk you through switching platforms? Want to pimp your blog up with all the latest cool widgets, or just get some feedback on your new site?

Two experienced bloggers will be on hand to help solve your practical blogging problems in these open “surgery” sessions. Some computers available, or bring your own and use our wireless. Drop in whenever you like during the session, but please let us know you’re coming.

• Date: Saturday 8 November 2008
• Time: 1pm to 3pm
• Venue: MDDA – Manchester Digital Development Agency, 117 -119 Portland Street, Manchester M1 6ED. Get directions to MDDA’s offices.

Blogging for Beginners

So you think you’d like to create a blog, but you’re not really sure where to start? In this workshop we’ll take you through the basics, and by the end of it you’ll have your own blog.

First beginners workshop:

• Date: Saturday 22 November 2008
• Time: 10am to 12 noon
• Venue: Gorton Library, Garratt Way, Gorton, Manchester M18 8HE. More information about Gorton Library.

Second beginners workshop:

• Date: Saturday 29 November 2008
• Time: 10am to 12 noon
• Venue: Crumpsall Library, Abraham Moss Centre, Crescent Road, Crumpsall, Manchester M8 5UF. More information about Crumpsall Library.

Important – How to book

All sessions are free, but numbers are limited so please book in advance.

Please do NOT ring MDDA or the libraries to book your place.

To book a place on one of the workshops or the blog lab please ring 0161 236 5555 or email the Manchester Literature Festival office.

Please let us know when booking if you have any accessibility needs.

The Tony Wilson Experience – billed as the longest ever intelligent conversation – is a chance for young, talented people with an interest in the creative arts to take part in a non-stop, 24 hour series of workshops with some of the biggest names from the music industry, screenwriting, broadcasting, writing, design, photography and film. Staged in memory of the late broadcaster and cultural entrepreneur, and supported by Manchester City Council, the sessions will be challenging, inspirational and at times experimental.

Check out the blog, and also don’t forget to visit the official site which has got live video, chats and all sorts of clever things going on.