Someday my print will come

Everyone in Manchester has started a literary magazine. You have too, haven't you? I thought so. This is good if you're a reader or a writer. This is not good if you hate literary magazines. If you hate literary magazines, run along now, this post will bore you.

I put this literary publishing frenzy down to the fact that it is so darn easy to publish an online magazine right now that a drunk kitten could probably manage it. Some of them are, essentially, group-written blogs, published on blogging platforms with a pared-down aesthetic. Others look just like proper print magazines, with design and illustration of a professional standard and are delivered via apps like issu, which aims to create a magazine-reading experience on your computer; turning pages instead of scrolling, for example. (It must be pointed out that some of these people are actually producing old-fashioned, hold-it-in-your-hands print mags and for this I salute them.)

Are they good? Some are fantastic, some aren't. But I like the fact that these writers are getting out there, messing about with words, and giving other writers a way to bring their work to a bigger audience. With some of these online projects the product isn't as important as the concept and the process. And it's interesting to think about how the publishing process itself is changing. When we can set up an online lit mag in an afternoon, and publish at the touch of a button are we losing time that in the days of print would be spent polishing, editing, perfecting? Is the fact that the finished product often isn't actually a product, in any but the most virtual sense, making us bolder (or less painstaking) editors? You can always go back and edit your post, right?


Anyway, enough of this. If you're a writer, you can send your stuff to:
Cutaway Magazine
Shoestring Magazine
Black & BLUE
Torn
There was nowhere to go but everywhere
Top Ten

By the way, if you're interested in places to read your work or hear people reading theirs, check out this list of live literature hotspots in Manchester I did for Creative Tourist earlier this month.

I don't know if you've noticed, but it's 2012 and we still don't have a Manchester listings magazine. Our last one, CityLife, closed in 2005. I was at a Christmas party with a newly arrived BBC staffer who wanted to know where we all found out what was on, and it was interesting to hear five or six Manchester folks who work in the arts share their own cobbled together collection of blogs, newspapers and websites. No easy answer there. Established listings magazine makers continue to snub Manchester, concluding that there is no money to be made from advertising here. And to be fair, they are probably right. But we are getting a new online listings site - Manchester Wire, set up by freelance writer Ruth Allan and my frequent collaborator Chris Horkan, with startup funds from Umbro Industries. I'll link to it here when it goes live.

Image by Leigh Jay Hicks (via Flickr).

Merry Chrismizzle

Merry Christmas everyone. Have a happy holidaze, and I'll see you on the flip side.

New blogs: Part 2

I've long been a fan of Len Grant, the Manchester-based photographer and writer whose work focuses on telling the stories of the people the media typically ignores: asylum seekers, addicts, people fighting like hell to win their way back to a better life - sometimes succeeding, sometimes not. So I was delighted to learn that Len's current project is a blog: Her First Year documents in words and pictures the story of baby Mia and her mother Frances, who are living in supported accomodation for vulnerable young mothers. It's a beautiful project in every way, please go check it out.

On a day when we're all fairly disgusted with the lack of attention paid to women's sport in the UK, it's good to see new additions like Girl On A Terrace , a lower league football blog from the perspective of a female Rochdale AFC fan. Any more sport blogs out there written by women? Give us a shout.

Anyway, here's the second part of the enormous list of new (to me, at least) Manchester blogs I had to add to my blogroll. If I've left anyone out, send me an email.

arts & culture, design/fashion blogs:
Followyourarts
umwp
wordofwarning
Old Fashioned Susie
MancMode
northwest is best
Beauty's Bad Habit
Curious Damsel
Pepper and Buttons

literature/writing blogs
Katie Anderson Writer
Beau Brummell Press
I hug my books
Julian Lee Robinson
Craig Pay
You, me, and the story
The Poplar Tree | it's not chick lit or pulp fiction
She-Wolf
Chetham's Library

Music blogs

Carnival Saloon

Film/Television blogs

Cathode Ray Tube

Foodie blogs

Little Red Courgette

Tea and Sympatico

City/neighbourhood blogs
Manchester Meanders
So…Chorlton

Digital/tech blogs
THE BOOK OF SCRAP

Personal blogs
.....haven't had a dream in a long time
On the Edge; A Freelancer in the Recession
what red said
The Fag Casanova
My Wonderful Life

Image copyright Len Grant

The Art of Blogging at Cornerhouse Thursday

Just a quick post to say I'm running a session called The Art of Blogging at Cornerhouse Thursday evening. It's not a "how to start a blog" session (one of those is planned for early 2012), rather this one is meant for people who already have a blog and are looking for some pointers and inspiration.

We'll be looking at a number of successful blogs and discussing strategies for developing a distinctive voice and identity for your blog, finding things to blog about, building a readership, and using links, photos and comments well, among other topics. It's going to be an informal, discussion-based session, so come with questions and problems and we'll do our best to address them all. It's taking place from 6-8pm at The Annexe at Cornerhouse this Thursday 10 November, £4/£3 concs. You can book tickets here.

UPDATE: As of Weds afternoon this has now sold out. If anyone missed out and would like to attend another workshop like this, or even a workshop about some different aspect of blogging, please let me know in the comments - it helps us plan future sessions.

Gorgeous image of Cornerhouse cinema from zawtowers (via Flickr)

Manchester Blog Awards 2011 recap (and new blogs)

So I think the 2011 Manchester Blog Awards were the best yet. A hefty dash of creative nonfiction was provided by the winners of The Real Story competition from my digital lit sideline Openstories. The five readers were wonderful and benefitted from an exceedingly friendly audience who really listened. And then came loads of excellent shortlisted bloggers reading a tasty smorgasboard of different writing - from short stories to microfiction to razor-sharp satirical emails. And then came the ever-popular Socrates Adams reading from his new novel Everything's Fine, which I just read and can say it is (as expected) deeply funny and exceedingly well-written. And then the crowning of the new winners, a very deserving bunch. Apologies to the one or two people who were disappointed by the absence of acceptance speeches, or our shocking lack of sufficient hoopla and fol-de-rol. Next year, maybe we should have the awards presented by celebrity dogs on unicycles. Whaddaya say?

On the night I got to thinking about the many amazing writerly partnerships and endeavours that started up from people meeting at the blog awards (I'm thinking especially of the Flashtag Manchester brigade and their various individual projects, side projects, events and one-off collaborations.) It might seem to someone unfamiliar with the Manchester writing scene that everyone at the blog awards knows each other. And yes, many of the writers shortlisted for blogs every year do know each other. Some met at the same event years ago and went on to do things together. More will have met there this year. Others know bloggers from writers' groups, university writing courses, or by being involved with one of the other bountiful opportunities available to writers in Manchester (the events and publications of the Bad Language collective, Tales of Whatever, The Night Light, Blank Media Collective, etc. )

The point is, writing brought these people together. If you're standing on the sidelines feeling left out, don't be a wallflower. There will always be the odd stuck-up ignoramus, but for the most part this is one of the friendliest and most inclusive writing scenes I've ever encountered. Come along to one of the aforementioned events and introduce yourself to the guy sat next to you, or to a writer whose work you liked, or to the girl behind you in the bar queue. Who knows what could come of it? What I'm saying is: it's definitely a clique. It's a clique that's big enough to encompass Greater Manchester and we're all personally invited to join it, kapeesh?

Anyway, we always hear about loads of new blogs via MBA nominations. They're additions to the ALREADY INCREDIBLY LONG list of new blogs I have been meaning to add here for ages. Hence the massive bumper edition of new blogs.... so many I'll have to publish this in two or three parts over the next few weeks. I'm not going to be able to do my usual helpful introduction to each one this time, but will simply give you the links. They'll all then be added to the categories in the Great Manchester Blogroll at the side. Happy readings.

Writers' Blogs
What Vanishes
Emma Jane Unsworth
sweetrsalted
Nici West
Josef A Darlington
I blog every day
Bad Penny

Personal Blogs
Richard Frosty
Jilted Generation
Oddments and snippets
Random Thoughts

Arts&Culture/Design/Fashion Blogs
Cava Coma
Manchester Cycle Chic
Manchester LAB
Caitlin's Country
LogsyLou
Clothes Pony

Music Blogs
Having a party without me
Unchained Melodist

City/Neighbourhood Blogs
MCRmix
Mancunian Wave

Tech Blogs
Tony Tickle

Journalism/Media Blogs
Speechmarks

Sport Blogs:
Naturally Cycling Manchester

Indian Summer

With two big festivals I'm involved in — Creative Tourist's Manchester Weekender and The Manchester Literature Festival — right around the corner, I've been insanely busy and never seem to have the time to pootle around the city the way I used to. Yes, there's been a complete absence of pootling, not much pottering and certainly no meandering for as long as I can remember. But with the insane Indian Summer we had going on last Friday I gave myself an afternoon and evening for some good old fashioned moseying around Manchester. First I went to my favourite city centre park: St. John's Gardens. You know Piccadilly Gardens? It's pretty much the opposite of that. Clean, green and leafy, quiet — and in Friday's heat, kinda sleepy. I lay down on the grass listening to music and almost fell asleep.

Then I went to The Book Barge. It's a floating bookshop shoehorned into a narrowboat that has been moored at Castle Quay for a few days. I was imagining a musty, dusty floating cabinet of curiosities. But it is nothing like that: clean and light, with a clever use of space and an immaculate stock of intelligently curated new books, serendipitous seconhand ones, a thoughfully-selected children's section and the sort of ephemera that book lovers drool over (Penguin tote bags, unjustly obscure magazines, bunting.) I ran into Adrian from The Art of Fiction. And I picked up a Puffin of Joan Aiken's The Whispering Mountain for £1. So I was happy.

I spoke with proprietor Sarah Henshaw about The Book Barge in this audioboo: The Book Barge comes to Manchester (mp3)

After a lovely few days in our city The Book Barge is now chugging away from Manchester to Skipton for the weekend. You can follow them on Twitter at @thebookbarge


From Castlefield I walked over to the opening of Asia Triennial Manchester, one of the nicest launches I've been to in a long time. Had a good chat with artist NS Harsha about his Spiritual Garlands comissioned by the amazing John Rylands Library. The garlands are intricate chains of individually-sculpted heads visitors to the library can wear around their necks, the chains emphasizing the way that ideas and knowledge pass from one person to another via books. I wished I could have gone on to Cornerhouse to see Rashid Rana but will have to save that for another time.

Then some very important business. Namely, barbecue. Our city recently became home to two new barbecue joints and after hearing good things from a number of people I headed over to Southern Eleven at Spinningfields. My first impressions weren't great. Too many hard shiny surfaces, which in addition to seeming uncomfortably trendy also meant it was loud. But we were able to sit on the patio. The staff were absolutely wonderful — they really took care of us. And the other thing I want to emphasize about this place is it's an amazing deal: low prices and big portions. We didn't leave feeling like we'd just been mugged, as is so often the case when dining out in Manchester.

I do love my barbecue, so I'm happy to report that the food was good. Pork belly ribs came with a brush-on pot of barbecue sauce and were nicely executed, though would have been better if a little more of the fat had been rendered on mine. Mac n' cheese was mighty fine. Onion rings and fries were both overseasoned; the first with chilli, the second with a superfluous combo of parmesan and truffle oil (and unfortunate that they were the pale, weedy kind instead of the skin-on, dark brown artisan variety that seem to be all the the rage in the USA these days.) Jalapeno cornbread tasted good but was a bit too fine and cakey in texture. And the Tennessee Rose cocktail I had was tall, pink, icy and flowery - just the drink for such a tropical evening. I forgot to take any pictures, but The Greedy Girl has just reviewed it as well and has some lovely pics on her site, so pop over there if looking at 'cue is what you wanna do.

NS Harsha Thought Mala image courtesy Asia Triennial Manchester

Ramsbottom Festival 2011: The Recap

So I've just about recovered from the inaugural Ramsbottom Festival. Here's a little summary:

Rain factor: You have an outdoor music festival in Ramsbottom. In September. Of course it's going to rain. The question is, how much and when. This rain wasn't too bad - it came and went, it was a bit of a drag, but you could mostly ignore it. There was always a place to get out of it if you wanted to.There was no wading through mud. We even had a few hours of sun on Sunday.

Best in show: The Waterboys. It was the very last band of the festival, it was dark, cold and wet, but they still made it very possibly the rockingest Sunday night Ramsbottom has ever seen. Those guys are professionals. The encore of Fisherman's Blues had the crowd twirling like idiots and sent us all home smiling (and shivering):


Runners up: Cherry Ghost, The Travelling Band and Young Knives all turned in solid performances on Saturday, Capercaillie rocked on Sunday. Can a traditional Celtic band rock? The answer is yes.

Miss (Non)Congeniality award: Badly Drawn Boy. I've always been kindly disposed to the beardy one's music, but after seeing this performance I'm less kindly disposed. He started things off by having a hissy fit about the sound and finished up by grousing that he should have been the headliner. In between: a whole bunch of meh. Stay in Chorlton next year and knit yourself some new hats, dude.

Personal disappointment: Missing Steve Cropper Friday evening. It was very wet, but still.

Taste sensation: Salted Caramel and Peanut Butter ice cream on a toasted brioche from the wonder that is Ginger's Comfort Emporium (long may they reign.) Really freaking good.

Best non-live-music-related activity: Silent Disco. Lots of fun.

Unexpected impressive thing: Whalley Range All Stars "PIG" performed inside a specially-built pig. The play was ten minutes long and only ten people could watch it at once. The audience had to don curly tails and stick their heads right into ten holes along the pig's belly, so they looked like a line of piglets.

Best thing for kids: The bouncy pirate ship, apparently. I spent about two hours standing next to this handing a very polite teenage girl money while my daughter bounced. And bounced. And bounced. Lots of kids about on Sunday, not so many on rainy Saturday. And don't ferris wheels look cool at night?

Comfort Factor: Weather aside, the festival was a pretty comfortable place to hang out. The drinks were excellent and keenly priced - Outstanding Beers' very pleasant festival real ale at £2.50 for a reasonably sized pint, fancy shmancy cider for £3.50. I think they had some weird mixed-drink-in-a-bottle stuff going on too, but I didn't get involved in that. In short, a far sight better than the shockingly bad beer selection (Bud and Coors?? In plastic bottles? Really?) at the Manchester International Festival pavillion this summer. You got served quickly at the bar. The food vendors were good and again, nobody was ripping you off (£5 for a massive plate of tasty Tibetan Kitchen.) There were enough toilets, so you didn't spend hours in the loo queue, and they stayed reasonably clean. Thumbs up.

Best flavor of Rekorderlig Cider: Strawberry Lime. I know, me either.

Unexpected funny thing: The VIP area resembled a cattle market - a roped off, exposed-to-the elements plot with bare benches, about as far from the stage as it could be. I think I saw two people in there all weekend. That kind of sums up the festival's ethos nicely.

Hero of the day: Stripeyman. The tirelessly boogieing, permanently ecstatic painted fellow below will dance on in the memories of festivalgoers for many years to come. I'll have what he's having.

In summary: a very good time. Of course, I walked down the road to get there, was sensibly attired and got in for free, so admittedly it would have to be awful for me not to have enjoyed it. But it surpassed my expectations in pretty much every way (apart from the weather, sadly.) Hey, I'm looking forward to next year already.

All images Brian Connor (via Flickr.)