With just a few days to go, bloggers across the north are waiting on the judges’ verdicts for this year’s Blog North awards.
The opportunity for the public to cast votes has now closed and the shortlisted sites across six categories have been announced.
They include nominations for the best city and neighbourhood blogs from across the north as well as those covering specific niches such as food and drink, arts and culture and best young blogger.
You can see the full shortlist here.
They will now be judged by an external panel with prizes decided via a combination of public and judge’s votes.
The results will be announced at the Blog North Awards evening on Wednesday 16 October at Gorilla in Manchester.
The organisers say: “Everyone is welcome to this event, which alongside the awards features readings from some of the year’s most talented and distinctive voices. The awards night includes the premiere of A Short Guide to the Future, a specially-commissioned piece from novelist, author of The Bird Room and screenwriter, Chris Killen; a performance from Mancunian flash fiction superheroes, Les Malheureux (writers Sarah-Clare Conlon and David Gaffney), and support from the year’s fresh crop of shortlisted bloggers. Expect an evening of words, music, and writing as diverse and original as the North itself.”
The 2013 Blog North Awards panel features some well-known names:
– novelist, Jenn Ashworth, author of The Friday Gospels and A Kind of Intimacy.
– founder of the technology, media and futures conference, Thinking Digital, Herb Kim.
– director of the Writer’s Centre in Norwich, Chris Gribble.
– director, The Writing Squad, Steve Dearden.
– social media evangelist and former photo-journalist, Christian Payne.
– Guardian writer and author of Crap Towns, Sam Jordison.
It is the second year that the awards has set out to reward blogging activity across the whole of the north of England after previously concentrating on the bustling Manchester scene.
