Please visit the homepage to cast your vote before voting closes on Monday 10 October . Public votes count for a sixth of the total vote and will be weighed along with the choices of our judges: MBA founder Kate Feld, last year’s joint Blog of the Year winners Fat Roland and Helen Power from Love Levenshulme, Dave Carter of the Manchester Digital Development Agency and Emma Bearman, founder of Leeds’ The Culture Vulture, one of the finest arts blogs in the country and probably the world. And of course we’ll reveal the winners at the MBA shindig on October 19 at The Deaf Institute. See you there!

A hearty welcome to WordPress hosting company 34SP.com. Thanks to them, this year’s winners will take home a domain name and free hosting for a year!

We’re also delighted that Creative Tourist, the arts magazine of the Manchester Museums Consortium, are once again sponsoring the Best Arts and Culture Blog category. This year’s winner will receive as a part of their prize a £150 writing commission for the award-winning website, whose cultural smorgasboard, the Manchester Weekender takes place October 14-16 all over the city. An excellent warm-up for the blog awards, no?

And we’ve got to give a shout-out to the folks at Manchester Literature Festival, who have supported this event from the very beginning. We’re delighted to be part of the festival, which takes place from October 10-23, and if you haven’t taken a gander at this year’s especially cracking programme, haste over here and book your tickets while there are tickets left to book.

Now in its sixth year, the annual awards recognise the best of Manchester’s online writing. Eligible blogs submitted by the close of nominations on September 18 will be narrowed down to a shortlist in each category. This year the public will again be able to vote on their choices, then the results of public voting will be tallied together with the choices of a judging panel to determine the winners. The full list of winners will be announced at the Blog Awards evening event on October 19, 2011 at The Deaf Institute, Manchester (part of Manchester Literature Festival).

This year’s event will take place on the evening of Wednesday, October 19. Socrates Adams will read from his forthcoming novel, Everything’s Fine (Transmission Print), and talk about blogging and writing. There will be readings from the winners of The Real Story creative nonfiction competition, and from the best and brightest of the city’s bloggers, stepping out from behind their screens for one night only. For booking information, please visit The Event page.

For the latest updates on the Manchester Blog Awards, subscribe via our website in the sidebar to the right, or follow us on Twitter at @mcrblogawards.

Logos can be downloaded from the press section of our website. For more information email info@manchesterblogawards.com, or phone MBA Director Kate Feld on 07960 285891.

Background:

Each year, the Manchester Blog Awards celebrates the best self-published online writing in the city. Since the first event at Urbis in 2006, the blog awards has significantly contributed to Manchester’s image within the UK and internationally as a city on the digital cutting edge, and as a place where ordinary people are engaging with technology in creative ways. It also helped establish a lively DIY writing and live literature scene in the city, one which is still flourishing today.

Five previous Manchester Blog Award winners have gone on to get book contracts, others have subsequently had their writing featured in national newspapers and media outlets. Each of these writers acknowledges the profile-raising power of the blog awards as a benefit to their work.

Best City & Neighbourhood Blog:

love levenshulme

The judges said: “A great-looking blog with strong content, fostering a valuable sense of community in one of our city’s most underrated areas.”

Best Arts & Culture Blog:

Ribbons & Leaves

The judges said: “A clever concept and good looks – thankfully this beautiful blog also delivers on quality of writing.”

Best New Blog:

330 Words

The judges said: “Totally loved this and pleasantly surprised at the consistently high quality – what could have been a gimmick appears to have been sustained throughout the blog and taken up with enthusiasm by the different contributors. Nice use of images, too.”

Best Writing on a Blog:

Fat Roland On Electronica

The judges said: “Nevermind the slightly obscure subject matter, this is just really good writing. Funny and intelligent.”

Best Personal Blog:

mightaswell

The judges said: “Fresh, well-written blog posts about a variety of subject matter, which, while being entirely personal, also provide an entertaining read. Oh, and not too navel-gazing, either, which is always good.”

Blog of the Year:

love levenshulme and Fat Roland On Electronica

Many thanks to all who nominated, voted, judged, sponsored and attended the 2010 Manchester Blog Awards. This has been our biggest year so far – and we look forward to returning even bigger and better in 2011!

Fellow double-shortlistee The Pigeon Post will be providing the musical accompaniment throughout the evening, which will conclude with the announcement of the 2011 Manchester Blog Awards winners.

You can book your tickets (priced £4) right now through Quaytickets, or just pay on the door!

To find out who wins this and the other five categories, come down to this year’s event at The Deaf Institute on Wednesday 20 October 2010 – click here for more information and to book tickets.

• Kate Feld, director of the Manchester Blog Awards
• Dave Carter, head of the Manchester Digital Development Agency
• Emily Morris, 2009 double winners for My Shitty Twenties
• Susie Stubbs, editor of CreativeTourist.com and 2008 double-winner for Travels with my Baby

So cast your vote now – you can do so until 5pm on Tuesday 19 October. And remember, the 2010 Manchester Blog Awards event takes place at The Deaf Institute on Wednesday 20 October 2010 – click here for more information and to book tickets.

James ‘Yer Mam!‘ Morton and Matthew ‘The Pigeon Post‘ Britton have signed up for the awards event, which takes place at the Deaf Institute on Wednesday 20 October 2010. These top-class music bloggers will be offering an eclectic mix of music for all tastes.

The awards evening is a popular event and features readings, music and, of course, the largest annual meeting of Manchester bloggers. This year we have managed to secure author and previous blog awards winner Chris Killen. Most importantly, we’ll be announcing the winners of the 2010 awards. So come along if you’re a blogger, a reader or a curious onlooker – all are welcome.

This year, the Manchester Blog Awards moves to a new home: the cultural hub that is the Deaf Institute, which is situated at 135 Grosvenor Street on the university campus. Tickets are £4 (£3 concs). They will be available on the door or may be booked in advance. You can book tickets here or by calling Quay Tickets on 0843 208 0500.

We’ve already had some ultra-keen blog-fans asking when they can start nomination. The answer: right now! So hop over to the Nominate a Blog form, after first checking eligibility in the Categories section. And remember: sure, you can nominate your own blog – but don’t forget to put forward one or two other blogs that you enjoy reading too. Each blog only needs one nomination to be longlisted.

If you want to promote the 2010 Manchester Blog Awards on your blog/news site, you can download our logo in the Press section, and to get in touch visit the Contact form. If you’re tweeting about the awards, why not include the #mcrblogawards hashtag?

At tomorrow’s event, the blogger DJs will send out a continuous live feed to a page on the MBA site (we’ll post it here as soon as it’s up) with information on the tracks they’re playing. A simultaneous web and video feed will broadcast the sights and sounds of the event to users online, who can comment on the music via twitter.

The DJ’s will be playing throughout the MBA event, but we’ll keep the sound turned off in the venue when the blog readings and awards are happening. After the talking bit’s over (around half nine) there will be a couple of hours of  music and party time. Here’s the schedule of who’s playing when.

Indie Credential – 6pm

Cosmic Disco – 7pm

Just Press Play – 8pm

Yer Mam 9pm

Cosmic Disco 10pm

DJ Battle-off 11pm

Big thanks to Jon and Ben at Cahoona, who organised the original Bloggerpalooza as part of Futuresonic in May 2008 and made it happen again at this year’s Blog Awards.