Manchester Blog Awards 2010 - Nominate now!

The Manchester Blog Awards, supported by Manchester Literature Festival, is in its 5th year and nominations are now open.

Manchester is becoming more and more exciting to me as I get to know it better. I started working for MLF very recently and am already witness to the significant online community that exists in and around the rainy city. Allegedly, Manchester has the 3rd largest twitter community in the whole world. That is impressive. I will tell Sheffield to get its act together!

One particularly exciting aspect of this community that inspires me is the blogging community. There’s nothing new about blogging, but mutual support, appreciation and celebration of it is something else. What better way of acknowledging and showing this appreciation of those who excel, than through a competition!

Writers, photographers, artists, crafters and collectors who have the courage to put themselves out there and publish their own work online can nominate themselves to be considered. As long as you live, work, or go to school within commuting distance of Manchester that is! You can also nominate someone else’s work that you admire.

There are 6 categories so you are likely to fit in somewhere! They are: Best New Blog, Best Writing on a Blog, Best Arts and Culture Blog, Best Personal Blog, Best City and Neighbourhood Blog and Blog of the Year.

Previous winners include Emily Morris’s tales of her “shitty, snotty, vomitty twenties” at My Shitty Twenties, the observational ramblings of Lost in Manchester and Ella Wrendenfors’s “lairy thoughts about arts and culture” at Run Paint Run Run. Since winning a Blog Award in 2008 for Single Mother on the Verge, Maria Roberts has landed herself a publishing contract – just think, that could be you!

Support the city's growing online writing community – get your nominations in and don't miss the awards ceremony at The Deaf Institute on Wednesday 20th October. Deadline for nominations is 5pm on Friday 10th September 2010. Good luck!

MLF supports the awards as part of the Freeplay programme of events: Freeplay is a series of events and happenings exploring the spaces where new writing meets new technology and other media. If this sounds like your cup of tea, have a look what else we have to offer at this year’s festival.

Watch this space for reviews of this year’s MLF events by our talented bunch of volunteer bloggers. Thanks to all of you for getting involved.

Kirsty Young (Digital Marketing Assistant)