So I'm here, at long last, to tell you all about the first annual Manchester Blog Awards. Why have Manchester blog awards? Well, simply because the city's fast-growing collection of bloggers are doing some really great writing and photography, and it's high time for them to get some recognition for it. The brand-new Manchester Literature Festival, which has the intersection of literature and technology as one of its main programming themes, is keen to encourage the city's DIY online talent. MLF has agreed to support and host the awards, which we hope will become an annual event.Here's how it's going to work: You will be able to nominate one blog for each of the four categories: best political blog, best arts and culture blog (this includes music blogs, photo blogs, art blogs, movie blogs, lit blogs, etc.), best personal blog, and blog of the year (this could be anything). The blogs you nominate can either be your own or someone else's or a mix of both. I'll compile a shortlist based on nominations, and the winners will be selected by a small judging committee that will consist of me and a few other folks involved in the city's digital culture, design and writing organisations (TBA next week.) Obviously anyone on the judging committee isn't eligible for an award. Winners will receive ... well, erm, something nice and fairly inexpensive. But think of the honour!
The winners will be announced in a brief ceremony at Urbis on October 16, in the evening. I'd like a couple of bloggers to read excerpts from their blogs, as well, so let me know if you have any interest in doing that. We'll be sharing the stage with live lit event Verberate!, which will have performance poetry, live music and djs on tap, so it should be a whole evening of entertainment.
At the moment, we're just waiting for the lit fest's website to go live. When it does, we'll be posting the information about how to send in nominations there about a month before the event. I'll keep you posted here too. In the meantime, if anything you've read above seems hopelessly wrong, or you just want to give me some grief, comment or email themanchizzle at gmail.com.
Also, many thanks to our own Newfred, who volunteered his design talents and whipped up this bitchin' blog awards logo in the time it takes most people to check their email.
12 comments:
What sort of stuff would would you be looking for in the readings?
Most of my posts are short and sweet, but I have started putting up novel extracts and should have started another one by the time the event rolls around.
There are some really good Manchester professional, work and business blogs so you might want to add another category or two.
Ian, we're looking for anything that would read well! I'll put you down as someone who's interested.
Stuart, thanks for the feedback. I agree there are a lot of great professional/business blogs oin the city, but I'm trying to keep the list of categories relatively small this first year. We can always add this category next time.
Is it strictly within the bounds of Greater Manchester or can nearby bloggers be included?
Great to see this got organised and congratulations on securing all that support. Good idea well implemented!
Would be willing to read stuff as long as I don't have to choose anything too embarrasing, which might not leave much... :-)
Wordsmith, I see no reason to limit it strictly to people who live within greater manchester - we all know that's a pretty arbitrary line, and lots of people outside it work in Manchester and/or consider themselves to be part of its cultural watershed (so said the girl who lives in Chorley!)
I think we can say you're eligible if you blog about manchester, and/or live or work reasonably near it. Is that vague enough for ya?
Newfred, I've taken note. Nice logo!
Um well I'm Chester-based, so only a stone's throw away, right? Practically the same county. Not blogging about Manc as such but certainly have connections to the city.
Not sure I'm eligible to enter though - mine's a professional blog and I see you're not planning to include those yet...
wow that sounds like an incredible expierience
It's a really interesting idea and another way modern media dips back and twists around to keep the ideas fresh.
I'm fascinated by what people write in blogs and always enjoy reading them, but I'd not have thought of grouping together Manchester blogs in this way.
Interesting award, I'd like to nominate PublicLiterature.org in the literature blog category. What is the process for this? Please contact me with more information if possible. Thanks.
http://yourtalkingshit.blogspot.com/
New Manchester Ranting Blog!
Did this ever take off???
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