Nominations open for 2009 Manchester Blog Awards

Hey, it's time to send in your nominations for this year's Manchester Blog Awards.

Come visit our delightful new Manchester Blog Awards website and submit nominations in the following categories: Best Writing, Best Arts and Culture Blog, Best City or Neighbourhood Blog, Best New Blog and Best Personal Blog. This year, instead of emailing us your nominations you can fill in this simple form here.

Multiple nominations are cool, as is nominating yourself, but keep in mind that a blog only needs to be nominated once, so there's no point getting all your mates to stuff our virtual ballot box.

Now in its fourth year, the annual awards recognise the best of Manchester’s independent online writing. Eligible blogs submitted by the close of nominations on September 18 will be narrowed down to a shortlist in each category - look for that before the end of September. Then a judging panel will select the winners, which will be announced at the Blog Awards evening event.

This year the MBA extravaganza is moving house: we'll be kicking our heels in the brand spanking new Band on the Wall on Swan Street. As much as we all adore Matt and Phreds, it was getting kinda cramped in there, wasn't it? So mark your calendars for the evening of Wednesday, October 21. Jenn Ashworth, former blog award winner and the author of A Kind of Intimacy will read her work and talk about blogging and writing.

And of course we'll be lining up a gang of blog readers over the coming weeks, with further announcements about the kind of madcap literary and musical shenanigans you can expect on the night as the date approaches. For the freshest updates subscribe via our website, catch our feed, or follow us on Twitter at @mcrblogawards.

Many thanks to our valiant supporters: The Manchester Blog Awards is run in partnership with Arts Council England, and is supported by the Manchester Digital Development Agency, which is part of Manchester City Council. And it's part of the Manchester Literature Festival, whose programme has just gone online here.