Blog North Awards (& blogging opportunties)

The Blog North Awards, which I've been running in one incarnation or another since 2006, is currently accepting entries for its 2013 competition. It's super easy (and free) to enter via our nifty online form and you can enter your own blog or someone else's. Or many someone elses'. Go crazy!

This year we're scanning the northern internets for blogging excellence in the following categories: Best Young Blogger, Best Writing, Best Personal Blog, Best Arts and Culture Blog, Best City or Neighbourhood Blog, and Best Food & Drink Blog. We don't care how many hits you get or how many advertisers you have or how many  shares you rack up.What we're looking for is great original content, plain and simple.

The entry deadline is this coming Sunday, 8 September, at midnight, so get on it if you haven't entered yet. Then later this month we announce a shortlist (which the public can vote on, along with our magnificent judges) and we'll reveal the winners at the Blog North Awards event on 16 October at Gorilla in Manchester. This year's event will feature author Chris Killen performing a specially commissioned piece, A Short Guide to The Future, and the literary/musical stylings of Les Malheureux, along with readings from some of the shortlisted bloggers which are always fantastic. If this sounds like the kind of thing you'd be into, you can find out more about the event and book tickets over here at the Manchester Literature Festival website.

In other blogging matters, it's just been arranged that I'll be running a blogging workshop at Castlefield Gallery as part of its excellent CG Associates programme. It's happening on the evening of November 5 (sparklers optional.) I'll post a link here and tweet about this when booking is live via the Castlefield Gallery website, but just wanted to give you advance warning as there's been a lot of interest in these.

And if you're looking for a more substantial introduction to the wonders of blogging and digital media, Cornerhouse are recruiting again for their Digital Reporter scheme. It takes place in the evenings over several months, and it's a wonderful way to brush up on digital skills like using multimedia content, audio and video blogging, and mastering all manner of social media while enjoying some marvelous cultural activites. All the info's here on the Cornerhouse website, closing date September 13.

New Blogs: The post-blog blog edition

Are blogs dead? Perhaps political blogging isn't in the rudest of health, if this Eulogy for the Blog on The New Republic is to be believed. From my point of view, political blogging in Manchester was reasonably active back in, say, 2005, but has gone very quiet these days, apart from a few stalwarts like the excellent Norman Geras, on whose Normblog I actually read about this piece.  I think it's a reach to say that blogging in general is over because a few cash-strapped newspapers are consolidating their media portfolios. But there's no doubt that things are changing.

We are seeing less of the all-rounder personal blog than we once did. Nowadays most bloggers recognise that you have to focus strongly on a niche if you want to develop an audience. I think bloggers on the whole are becoming increasingly professional and serious, as blogging itself becomes commodified. And what we have, increasingly, is what Marc Tracy describes as the post-blog blog: a sophisticated group-written and edited website that publishes blog posts. A bit like our latest addition to Manchester Media and other stuff: Northern Soul. Former Times journalist Helen Nugent has marshalled a wide-ranging group of contributors including Ex-Guardian journalist Helen Carter, Manchester Salon organiser Simon Belt and theatre director Lucia Cox to cover Northern happenings, attractions and cultural events. It joins just-launched NW listings mag The Skinny; terrific to see our cultural press growing. And it's also good to see Nick Jaspan's NW media industry website Prolific North filling the gap left by the closure of How-Do.

Writing and Literature: Andrew Simpson is the author of a history of Chorlton, and maintains a blog packed with interesting history and photographs, mainly Manchester-related. There are also new blogs from Manchester-based writers Rosie Garland and Michelle Green.

Personal: A nice range of new ones this go-round:
Manchester Flick Chick
Bitten by the Dog
Geekmummy
Richard Frosty

Music: Silent Radio is a well-organised music blog with a monthly Manchester gig guide. And tenuto sempre is a pleasingly eclectic music and found-sound blog with plenty of interesting audio files to listen to.

Food and Drink: Enough with the food and drink blogs already, this is getting ridiculous. Honestly, they just keep coming. The latest batch, fresh from the oven:
Manchester Foodies
Where to Feed
FoodGeek
Bacon on the beech
Cookingopolis

Here's another thing: The Manchizzle's Manchester Blogroll isn't the Manchester Blogroll anymore. Well, it mostly still is, but in my latest update I've sneakily added in a smattering of great blogs from the wider Northwest, Liverpool and possibly even as far away as (gasp) Leeds. This is an indirect result of the Manchester Blog Awards' expansion into the Blog North Awards last year. In the course of running the competition I've made the acquaintance of some Northwest blogs so good I can't bear not actually linking to them myself. I've also weeded out links to blogs that were not being regularly updated, exquisite corpses though they may be. Happy reading.

Image courtesy of newly Turner-Prize nominated (and Macclesfield-born) artist David Shrigley. Yeah!

The Blog North Awards

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you probably know I'm the organiser of the Manchester Blog Awards, which started seven years ago. It happened in the cafe bar at then-Urbis. We were sharing the bill with a rather serious poetry reading night, and there were maybe 25 people there and most of them were probably there for the poetry. There weren't very many bloggers in Manchester back then. It still felt like we were doing something new (though this was by no means the actual dawn of blogging or anything.) It was exciting just meeting another blogger.


Over the last seven years, thanks to the support of Manchester Literature Festival, Arts Council England, and Manchester Digital Development Agency, we evolved into a bigger and better event - and, we like to think, helped a fair few writers (and photograpers and illustrators) in this city become better known, better supported or at least more fired up about their work. I know I'm biased, but Manchester's blogging community is pretty freaking awesome.

And now we're evolving again: We've just announced that the Manchester Blog Awards is becoming the Blog North Awards, and will merge with the Blog North network and events series organised jointly by my writing organisation Openstories, Manchester-based webzine Creative Tourist and artblog emporium The Culture Vulture from Leeds. I'll still be the main organiser and it will still be a part of the programme of Manchester Literature Festival, but it will now be open to bloggers across the North. And there are some new categories just to shake things up a bit: We'll be handing out awards for Best Food and Drink Blog, Best Young Blogger and Best Specialist Blog alongside our past categories of Best Arts and Culture Blog, Best Personal Blog, Best Writing on a Blog and Best City or Neighbourhood Blog on 17 October at The Deaf Institute.

Over on the Manchester Literature Festival Blog I spoke to Sarah-Clare Conlon about the event and answered some questions about why we're changing things and the state of blogging in general. I'm really looking forward to reading great blogs from Yorkshire, Cumbria, Merseyside, Northumberland and everywhere in between. And there are lots of them to read: 205 blogs are in the running as of today (gosh, I'd better get back to reading them.) You can enter your own blog or a blog you love reading over on our Blog North Awards website, where you'll also find all kinds of information about the competition and the event. And to keep up to speed on everything you can follow us on Twitter @blognorth or Facebook. Happy blogging.