Rainy City Love Stories winner

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THIS JUST IN...


We've just announced the winner of our Rainy City Stories Valentine's Day Competition. Craig Melville is the lucky man - his story The Shortest, The Coldest took the prize. For more details, and to find out who the four finalists were, check it out here on the Rainy City Stories site.

Lovely Levenshulme

In the Manchester neighbourhood standings, Levenshulme seems to get more than its fair share of love. I've only been there a few times myself and didn't really spend enough time to get a real sense of the place, so I've always wondered: what is it about Levenshulme that inspires such devotion?

The newest manifestation of this good vibe emanating from South Manchester is Love Levenshulme. It's a project that invites L-hulme residents to write the things they love about living there on a special postcard, which they can give or send to people or businesses they want to show their appreciation to.

Project organiser Matt Clements describes it on the Love Levenshulme blog as "a kind of underground viral appreciation marketing."

He explains it thusly: “It all started off as a little homespun idea to try to show some appreciation for people in the community who do the little everyday things that make a big difference. I’d be strolling round Levenshulme with my children, pointing out gardens where people had made a real effort, or meeting friendly people in shops, and I wanted to find a way of saying ‘thanks.’” What a lovely idea. Visit LL HQ to find out where to get the postcards, and to read what some Levenshulme-based bloggers have to say about their hood.

(Image - which is NOT one of the Love Levenshulme postcards, Matt would like me to point out - sourced from Lady Levenshulme. Who else?)

Rainy City Love Stories contest

Welcome to 2009, our shiny new year. I have about a billion things to blog about, but they will all have to wait 'til tomorrow. I can tell you this, though: We're running a Valentine's day themed contest on Rainy City Stories. Yeah, I know the holiday was created by the greeting card industry and is just an excuse for hapless couples to be overcharged for bad food served on pink doilies once a year. We're celebrating with writing. See below (and apologies if you've already gotten this in another format since I'm cutting and pasting here. You people can stop reading now.)

Rainy City Stories wants your love. We also want your love stories and poems. In honour of Valentine’s Day, we’re offering a wonderful prize for the best Rainy City Love Story we receive in the next month.

Whether you're an old romantic or a cynic, we invite you to tell us your tales (real or imagined) of falling in, out, or over love in our city. But don’t restrict yourselves to traditional romances; we’re willing to interpret “love story” in a wider sense. The winning submission could be about a more abstract kind of love. It could even be an anti-love poem, or a rant against all things loved-up
The winning piece of writing will be published on our website on the eve of Valentine’s Day amid a shower of cupids and lace bows and twinkly-eyed kittens. And the winner will receive a big fat £50 Borders gift voucher (the kind of thing that really makes us writer-types swoon), kindly donated by our friends at the Manchester Literature Festival.

Here’s the lowdown: Entries must be submitted by close of business on Tuesday, February 10. Please submit short stories or poems through the cunning mechanism on our website and put the words “love contest entrant” at the top of the story. Entrants should only submit their own original work, and writing that has not previously been published. Also, by entering the competition you grant RCS the right to publish the piece online.

(Picture by Gregoire Chabrol.)

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