Blogging workshop in January

Chris of Mancubist and I are going to be holding another blogging workshop in the New Year, thanks to the lovely folks at MDDA and the Manchester Literature Festival. The workshops booked up in October super fast, so if you want in don't delay.

Details:

So You Wanna be a Blogstar?
With Kate Feld of The Manchizzle and the Manchester Blog Awards, and Chis Horkan of Mancubist

1 – 3 pm Saturday, January 19 2008
MDDA, Portland Street.

After a huge demand for our blogging workshops during last year’s Literature Festival, we’ve decided to hold another one for those who might have missed out in October.

In this hands-on workshop, we’ll look at the elements that go into successful blogs, and discuss the finer points of style, design, focus, and attracting readers. We’ll also take you though the applications and add-ons that can make your blog function more professionally. This workshop will suit someone who’s familiar with the basics of blogging but wants to progress to the next level.

Wireless available on site for laptops, or workstations provided – please specify your needs when booking. Limited to ten places. Book by calling the Manchester Literature Festival office on 0161 236 5725, or by emailing admin@manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk

Manchester Blog Awards Tonight

Just a final reminder that the blog awards is happening tonight at Matt and Phred's. The whole thing kicks off at 7, though the actual announcement of the awards will be happening around 7:50 or so, after readings from some of the city's most lovely and talented bloggers.

I'm really looking forward to having a pint and a chat with my blogging brethren. It's been far too long since we've all gotten together. And there will be lots of new folks to meet as well. I predict a late night.

Manchester Literature Festival: Review competition

Before I say anything else, today is the last day to vote on what happens in the final chapter of our Manchester Blogstory. If the blog poll function seems to be having problems when you visit the site, check back in an hour or so. For some reason the poll is extremely temperamental. We don't know why. Sigh.



The Literature Festival kicks off tonight with a reading from the wonderful Rose Tremain. For the next week or so I'll be redirecting my blogging energies over to the shiny new MLF blog, where we're running a review-writing competition. And if you write the best review, you'll win a covetable set of Vintage Twins worth £150.

All you have to do is send your review of an MLF event (400 words or less) to me at mcrlitfestblog at gmail dot com, within three days of the event. I'll post all the reviews we receive, with a link to your blog if you have one. Full details here.

Manchester Science Festival makes it 4

Hey kids, there's a new festival in town... The Manchester Science Festival has somehow materialised out of thin air, and will be spreading its nerdy goodness all over town Oct 20-28.

So how many festivals are we up to now? The science fest muscles onto an already crowded field, joining the Literature Festival, the Food and Drink festival and the Comedy Festival. Okay, that's four.

Four festivals is a lot to cram into one month, that's all I'm saying. And all this unbridled festivity puts a tremendous burden on Manchester's humble punters. You could try and enjoy them all at once by eating Italian peasant food prepared by an overpublicized celebrity chef whilst simultaneously composing a poem in your head, laughing at Dave Spikey and marvelling at the wonders of physics busking. But I wouldn't recommend it.

Independents Day

I'm going to be taking part in a discussion about alternative publishing at the MLF's Independents' Day event, a one-day conference for non-mainstream publishers, editors, writers, readers and their ilk at the Lowry on Saturday 6th October, 11am – 7pm. So I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you that MLF has just announced a special two-for-one deal on advance tickets (full prices are £8/6).

Here's all the wondrous details from festival HQ:

Independents Day is a great networking event for all budding writers, publishers and
fans of cutting-edge contemporary literature, with opportunities to:

MEET the editors of some of the UK's most innovative small presses and magazines,
including representatives of Comma, Route, Templar and Suitcase.

DISCOVER hot-off-the-press talent with performances by Elizabeth Baines, Ian Clayton,
Shamshad Khan, Janet McDermott, Chloe Poems, Jane Weir, Chris Woods
and contributors to Rain Dog (Pat Winslow), Match Box (James Davies & Alex
Middleton) and Libertine magazines.

CREATE your own publication in our DIY Workshop facilitated by 'zine queen Michelle
Green, yes SHE IS AWESOME - sorry, that was me interrupting the press release. I'll stop. (Please note there is a limited capacity for this workshop so please reserve a space at the time of booking).

GEN UP on imaginative and viable ways to publish and disseminate work in our
Alternative Publishing Seminar chaired by Ra Page. Speakers include Ian Daley
(Route), Kate Feld (Manchizzle and Manchester Blog Awards) and Paul Williams
(Lightning Source).

JOIN the Inpress Debate about the future of independent publishing, chaired by the
writer and critic, DJ Taylor. Speakers include Simon Thirsk (Bloodaxe) and Jeremy
Page (Frogmore Papers).

DISCUSS the role of MA writing courses in the nurturing of new writers and editors in our Out of School presentation featuring representatives of Transmission, Matter and
Textyle magazines.

BROWSE our Indie book market and sample the best in independent literature
production from around the region and beyond.

For further information please visit: www.manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk
To book tickets please tel: 0870 4280785 and quote 'Indie Day 241'.

(Provocative illustration courtesy of Being lady lucy.)

Blogging workshops at MDDA (UPDATED)

UPDATE: Gadzooks! These are now full, I'm told. There has been such a robust demand that I may try to organise some more blogging workshops after the festival. If you want a heads up about those, leave a comment with your email, or send me a message at themanchizzle at gmail. Sorry to those who missed out this time around.


Just wanted to say that there are still a couple of spaces left in the two blogging workshops we're running Saturday, Sept. 29.

Blogging for Writers will go over the basics of blogging as a tool to market your work, experiment with different styles and get projects off the ground. And have fun writing! It'll be led by myself and the amazing Elizabeth Baines (Tart of Fiction/Fictionbitch), an author who has made excellent use of blogging both professionally and creatively.

So You Wanna Be a Blogstar? is a general blogging workshop ideal for anyone setting up a blog, or anyone who has been blogging for a while but needs a little inspiration. It'll be from 2-4pm, and will be led by myself and the awesome Chris from Mancubist, which is shortlisted in the arts and culture category at this year's MBAs.

Both are just £2, and take place at MDDA headquarters on Portland Street. We will have computers available for those who need them, but the place has wireless so you can bring laptops if you like. Book here at the MLF site.

Manchester Blogstory chapter three

The third riveting chapter of our interactive Manchester blogstory, What Would You Do?, has just been posted. I have to say, I didn't see the story going this way at all, so it's a neat surprise. I also enjoyed Elizabeth's descriptions of stuff we see all the time around Manchester - the goths in Cathedral Gardens, the dancers performing in front of M&S, the crowds of drinkers outside Sinclair's Oyster bar. It's both unnerving and cool to see these familiar scenes become part of a fictional work. And I'm dying to know more about the mystery man! Go read it and vote already.

There was a major problem with the blog poll last week (and incidentally, why do blog poll tools suck so much?)Aaaanyway, we're back with the one that worked best, Blog Flux Polls, which has a very neat map function which shows where all the votes are coming from on a map of the world.

By the way, I added about a hundred new blogs to the Great Manc Blogroll late last week - okay, er, maybe it was only 12 or so. But I'm not going to have time to introduce them politely here, so y'all will just have to introduce yourselves.

2007 Manchester Blog Awards: Shortlist

Here's the shortlist for the 2007 Manchester Blog Awards - it's now with the other judges, Richard Fair of BBC Manchester and Dave Carter of MDDA.

Many thanks to everyone who nominated and was nominated; we had well over a hundred nominations this year, many of them very strong, and it was really difficult to choose. The winners will be announced October 10 at the awards event, so if you've been shortlisted you may want to reserve tickets and save the date. More details on that event as we get closer to the time.

The shortlists (in no particular order:)
Best writing on a blog:
Untitled Supermarket Nightmare/Day of Moustaches
Airport Diaries
A Free Man in Preston
Community Fair

Best political blog:
The Asparagus
Normblog
Politaholic
Skipper

Best personal blog:
Gooseania
Notebooks
Single Mother on the Verge
Crinklybee

Best arts and culture blog:
Fictionbitch (aka The Tart of Fiction)
Mancubist
The Ring Modulator
The Console (music and visual)

Best new blog:
The Shoe Project
Get Weird Turn Pro
Words Dept.
Renter Girl

Act now!

Just a quick reminder that tomorrow is the deadline for submitting your picks for the 2007 Manchester Blog Awards. We've had more than 80 separate nominations, which is a scorching hot response! But if you haven't sent yours in yet, email 'em to mancblogawards AT googlemail.com by midnight tomorrow.

Also, while we're on the subject of deadlines, reader voting on what happens next in What Would You Do, our Manchester Blogstory, closes at 8pm tonight. Eeek! Tune in on Tuesday morning for the next installment.

What would you do?

Check it out... The first chapter of Manchester Blogstories went live this morning. The story is called "What Would You Do?" and starts out in a Chorlton apartment building. I'm really excited about the way its coming together.

I think I've posted about it before, but the idea behind this project was to set up an interactive fiction blog, set in real time Manchester. Every Tuesday for the next six weeks the writer Elizabeth Baines will be posting a new mini-chapter, and readers will have two days to vote on what should happen next. The final chapter will be performed live at the Manchester Blog Awards on Wednesday 10th October.

So please go read and vote! It is VERY short, and won't take long. The link is here:

http://manchesterblogstories.blogspot.com/

And check back next Tuesday...

Under construction

Here are some pictures from the New Islington Festival on Saturday:

Versifier Martin Stannage getting things started in the literature tent.


This is Seb Clarke bring the horns, while the security guy looks bored.


There were these two crazy performance artists dressed like medics, clowning and dancing all over the place.


I love how this one looks like an L.S. Lowry painting. You can see that the festival was basically a party on a muddy building site.


Before and after?

I had a good time, though I took a stupid route to the site and was menaced by a marauding band of scallies haunting the canal. Spent most of my time in the literature tent, where I heard David Barnett read his great short story "What Would Nite Owl Do?". It had been published in the sadly departed All Saints No Sinners but I missed it somehow. Anyway, I'm reading the amazing Watchmen for the first time right now, so it was weirdly serendipitous to hear a story that referenced those characters. I also admired the insanely cool cover for the Pulp Fiction-themed editon of Transmission which should be out soon.

Later I saw 2 Days in Paris at Cornerhouse, which really is funny despite often being a huge Woody Allen rip-off (or should I say tribute?) It has this great scene with a cat... I was actually howling with laughter.

Weekend: New Islington, Mayflies

Remember last year's New Islington festival? Uh... I remember that there was one... something about a spurting man and a barge? This year its being billed as The Urban Folk Festival for Urban Folk. Urban as in Urban Splash, developers of that rebranded bit of Ancoats, geddit? Anyway, it's 2-8 pm around Old Mill Street, and it's free.

And the music is by (drumroll please) D.percussion, making a "secret return" after saying this year's fest was the last. Not sure this is a real selling point in Manc these days. The list of performers, spread over three stages, doesn't ring a lot of bells for me. Psychedelic outfit the Beep Seals, Magic Arm and a bunch of other local bands and DJs. Contrary to what the "urban folk festival" tagline leads you to expect, there are only a tiny handful of folk performers including Mancunian folkstress Kathryn Edwards. Would've been nice if they actually had given us an urban folk festival, instead of the usual teeth-grinding mix of Manc djs spinning the usual thumpy whatever. Basically, it's going to be D.Percussion with fairy cakes.

Fortunately, there's the indie-tastic Manchester Book Market, where you can meet some of those hardworking literary magazine editors and small press folks. There's readings from Anthony Joseph, Lemn Sissay (though he was a no-show last year) the brilliant flash-fiction writer David Gaffney, Tony Walsh, John Siddique, and a mess of poets and writers you may not necessarily have heard of before but you never know one or two of them might be pretty decent, all compered by Chloe Poems. There's also a series of specially commissioned shorts from local filmmakers.

There's also some twee activities involving vintage cakes, wellies and eek, pedalos on the canal. Yeah, that canal in the picture above. A lot of it sounds harmlessly annoying along the lines of Mr. Scruff's sodding tea tent. But then there's the nu rave sheep pen. "Graffiti artists will spray designs on live sheep while listening in the best in nu-rave club sounds." Oh sweet Jesus, that's wrong in eleven different ways at once.

At the same time, across town in Cornerhouse, Mayflies flits into town to bring us a day of arty hijinks. Between 11 and 5:30, artist BBB Johannes Deimling will perform Don't Hurt Me in the public spaces of the Cornerhouse building. His works often "provoke unconscious fears using an undercurrent of bizarre humour." Scary and funny? Sounds good. Up in the gallery they'll be screening Kleinodtotsod, a video work by John Bock that hints at the malevolent nature of domestic space. Then at 6 there's a screening of the Mayflies film programme, with works by George Barber, Deborah Bower, Wojciech Bruszewski, Michelle Handelman and Ben Rivers. (entry to the films is £3 and includes a drink, booking reccomended.)

Oh, and you can't get in if you've been within ten feet of the nu-rave sheep pen. They'll be checking.

Manchester Blog Awards 2007: details

The nomination period is now open for the 2007 Manchester Blog Awards

Cash prizes will be awarded in five categories: political blog, personal blog, arts and culture blog, best new blog (open to blogs begun since September 1 of 2006) and a new category recognising the best creative writing on a blog.

To nominate blogs, send URLs for one entry in each category to mancblogawards at googlemail.com by Sept. 7. Please also specify where the blogger is based, if you know. I'll draw up a shortlist after the close of the nominating period, and the winners will be selected by a judging panel TBC.

(In order to qualify, writers of the blogs must live within reasonable commuting distance of Manchester. And yes, you can nominate your own blog. Respond in comments with the seventeen questions I haven't anticipated, and I'll do my best.)

Also, save the date, for the winners will be announced here:

Step away from the computer, it’s the MANCHESTER BLOG AWARDS 2007

Moho Live, Oldham Street
7pm Wednesday October 10, free

We’ve organised a star-studded gala affair in the brand new Moho Live venue on Oldham Street (it's the building that used to be a health club, between Sascha's Hotel and Affleck's Palace. Not open yet.) The evening will be a riotous celebration of new and engaging online writing, with readings from Manchester bloggers and music from the city’s mp3 bloggers.

We’re delighted to be able to host a reading from Caroline Smailes, whose debut novel, In Search of Adam, was recently published by Friday Fiction, the new fiction imprint from The Friday Project, the innovative publishing company that specialises in putting blogs in print. Caroline’s blog was hugely instrumental in getting her book published, and we’ll talk to her about that too.

Manchester writer and blogger Elizabeth Baines will be reading the final installment of her Blog Story, What would you do? a tale set in Manchester that she’ll be writing in six sequential posts on a blog – with readers voting on what turn the plot should take. To find out more about this project, visit manchesterblogstories.blogspot.com

Also, the Decemberists suck.

You're not going to believe it

Are you plagued by giant albino alligators in your sewer? Did you go to school with a guy whose cousin tried to drink coke while eating pop rocks and her stomach exploded? This is your lucky day. See below for details of a verrry interesting writing competition that's happening as part of this year's Manchester Literature Festival:

URBAN MYTHS RE-TOLD

Urbis and the Manchester Literature Festival are running a national call for submissions of micro fictions that tell or retell an urban myth.

The micro fiction or flash fiction genre forces writers to dispense with the excessive, superfluous and unnecessary elements to convey a succinct idea or story. This format is particularly suited to the Chinese-whisper characteristic of Urban Myths, where partial truths are laced with fantasy as they pass from teller to teller. We invite you to create your own version of what happens in the dark alleys and night clubs of cities and towns. You can use horror, science fiction or comedy to pack your punch.

You can submit up to five short fiction works of no longer than 250 words each on the theme of Urban Myths. Participants can be any age, and must live in the UK. Entries will be accepted in hard copy by mail only (see details below). All entries must be accompanied by a covering page which details the writer’s name, mobile phone number, email address and mailing address in order to be eligible.

The deadline for entries is Friday August 17th at 5pm. The submissions will then be judged by a literary panel including Katherine Beacon (BBC writersroom) and flash fiction author, David Gaffney, who will select the ten strongest entries.

Students from the Interactive Arts degree at MMU will then interpret the successful ten flash fiction pieces and use the work as inspiration for the creation of new artworks in various genres (i.e.film,photography, sculpture, performance). This will result in a promenade performance installation piece,featuring all of the successful selections of micro-stories as interpreted by the Interactive Arts students.

The event will take place at Urbis on October 11th at 6pm as part of the Manchester Literature Festival 2007. The audience will be led around the Urbis building as darkness falls…. and the Urban Myths are re-told again. The overall winner of the competition will receive a complimentary night for two, including dinner, bed & breakfast, in one of City Inn’s stylish contemporary hotels.

Please post to:

URBAN MYTHS PROJECT
Creative Programmes
Urbis
Cathedral Gardens
Manchester M4 3BG


It's true, man. It really happened. Seriously, I am not making this up.

Manchester Blog Awards 2007

I'm happy to tell you that the Second Annual Manchester Blog Awards are in the works, and they're going to be bigger and better than last year.

The judges will be picking winners in the same categories as last year (political, arts and culture, best personal blog and blog of the year) as well as a new category that recognises the best creative writing on a blog. And we're sorting out cash prizes for the winners this year. I'll let you know about how to nominate blogs closer to the time.

We're getting our own star-studded event where we'll have even more readings from bloggers, an exciting guest speaker, and the city's music bloggers are going to be asked to do some dj-ing (so don't even think about going to a gig that night. I'm looking at you, GirlonaTrain and JustHipper.)

The blog awards going to be happening during the Manchester Literature Festival on Wednesday, October 10, at around 7:30 in a new venue on Oldham Street called Moho Live (this is all tbc for now). Put it on the calendar.

We're also planning some blogging workshops during the festival - more info on that later.

So... does any one of you design wizards feel like whipping up a "second annual blog awards" logo? And if anyone has any ideas or strong opinions about this year's blog awards, speak up.