Manchester Lit Fest and Blog Awards

Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney

One award I won't be winning is this year's Manchester Blog Awards. If only I'd known...I could have nominated myself in the absence of anyone else wanting to do it. It's all part of the current Manchester Literature Festival, which kicked off on Thursday and continues at venues across the city until Monday 25 October. Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy and Children's Laureate Michael Rosen will be appearing while Nobel prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney will bring things to a close on the 25th.

Some of the interesting highlights include:

• Jeanette Winterson at Manchester Cathedral on 21 October delivering the Manchester Sermon
• Historical novelists and historians Sarah Dunant and Alison Weir
• Bernard Cornwell talking about his latest novel, The Fort
• Short story collection Mud: Stories of Sex and Love from Michele Roberts on 20 October at Waterstone's bookshop on Deansgate and Amanda Craig with Hearts and Minds;
• Crime writers Val McDermid and Sophie Hannah discuss gender roles in fiction and other women's issues in crime fiction at The Whitworth Art Gallery on 22 October.
  
  
  
  

Crime writer, Val McDermid

Sixty events on the programme gives participants loads to choose from. A great innovation for Gaskell lovers offers a literary coach tour to the newly restored home of Cranford author Elizabeth Gaskell in the Manchester suburbs and on to The Gaskell Memorial Tower in nearby Knutsford.

Award-winning TV writer and producer, Paul Abbot, a Patron of the Festival, (now in its fifth year and originally a poetry festival), said: 'I am delighted to be a patron of such a ground-breaking festival that brings writers of international repute to the city. Since the festival began, it has not only nurtured emerging local talent, but has also provided these new writers with a valuable showcase for their work, which is so important in today's competitive market.'

Full information can be found at http://www.manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk/ or phone 0870428 0785.

Manchester Blog Awards logo



As for those blog awards, the shortlist has been decided and this year's event takes place at The Deaf Institute on Grosvenor Street on Wednesday, 20 October. You can read more about it at http://www.manchesterblogawards.com/