CityLife

Travels With My Baby wins CityLife.co.uk Blog Award

Neil Sowerby presents Susie Stubbs with her award

THE newly established CityLife.co.uk Blog of the Year award, with £300 in prize money, went to the maternal chronicles of Travels with my Baby at last night's Manchester Blog Awards 2008 at Matt and Phred's Jazz club.

CityLife.co.uk editor Neil Sowerby admitted to preferring traditional publishing methods but was nevertheless pleased to hand the award to writer Susie Stubbs, who also beat the popular Single Mother on the Verge to top the Best Personal Blog category for her kid-friendly site.

Joyfully received

Part of this year's Manchester Literature Festival, the Blog Awards have quickly achieved a reputation that can't be ignored. Despite plenty of noisy background chatter, the night was joyfully received and there wasn't an empty seat in the house.

The blogging community has grown immensely over the last year, and the online contingent was out in force last night to see the best and brightest of the blogerati get their dues.

Serious talent

Manchester University's Centre for New Writing graduate Jenn Ashworth went home with the coveted Best Writing on a Blog award for her collection of short fiction and literary musings on Every Day I Lie a Little. Ashworth's novel, A Kind of Intimacy, will be published with Arcadia in May 2009.

This category has a history of flagging up serious literary talent, and last year's winner Chris Killen was on hand to read from his forthcoming novel, The Bird Room, and speak with awards organiser Kate Feld about his writing.

Great writers

Presenting the awards, Feld was full of praise for the nominees and the community at large; 'I'm amazed how many great writers there are out there who are doing it just because they love it and that's what this is all about,' she said.

Other winners included Follow the Yellow Brick Road for Best New Blog, Northernights for Best Arts and Culture Blog and Manchester Buses for Best Neighbourhood Blog.

Style, perspective, humour and honesty

The judges were Sarah Hartley, editor of the MEN online, Dave Carter of Manchester Digital Development agency, Richard Fair of BBC Manchester and Chris Killen, who acknowledged the style, perspective, humour and honesty of the winners.