Sydney Writers' Centre blog

Meanland Blogging Competition open

The Meanland Project (online blog for the Meanjin and Overland Journals) is holding a competition to find two bloggers to write fortnightly for the Meanland Project.

The winners will receive a one-off prize of $200, and be paid $75 per week to blog and tweet. One runner-up will receive $100 and have their entry published online.

Meanland, ‘reading in a time of change’, is dedicated to looking at the ‘what’ and increasingly the ‘how’ of the digital revolution and its impact on publishing. They've included topics such as the collapse of the distinction between readers and writers as more people become involved in creating content; the cultural and political impact of the unparalleled monopolies emerging in the digital landscape; and the psychological consequences of reading and writing online.

Deadline: 5pm 16 May.
Word limit:1000 words.

Head to the Meanland website for more details on topics and entry guidelines here.

 

Finalists announced in Best Australian Blogs 2011 Competition

The finalists in the Best Australian Blogs 2011 Competition were announced by the Sydney Writers’ Centre today.
 
23 bloggers have made it to the finalists round of the hotly contested competition. Best Australian Blogs 2011 Competition Coordinator Rose Powell said: “We were very impressed by the quality and quantity of the entries. It’s been difficult to short list the finalists so I’m sure the judges are going to have a tough job to pick each category winner.”

You can view the full list below or on the official announcement page.

With 570 blogs in the running, winners will come from four categories:
    •    Business – judged by Joel Norton, boosthq.com.au
    •    Commentary – judged by Valerie Khoo, director of sydneywriterscentre.com.au
    •    Lifestyle/personal – judged by Brenda Gaddi, www.mummy-time.com
    •    Words/writing – judged by Angela Meyer, blogs.crikey.com.au/literaryminded
 
In addition, bloggers could also choose to participate in the Best Australian Blogs People’s Choice Awards. Voting for this Award continues until Thursday 5 May. Already, the first 5 days of voting has seen almost 8000 unique votes with more streaming in each hour.
 
The on Friday 6 May, the Sydney Writers’ Centre will announce:
    •    the four category winners
    •    the winner of the People’s Choice Awards
    •    the overall winner who will be announced as Best Australian Blog 2011
 
“It’s been such a popular competition which really shows how much interest and activity there is in blogging,” said Rose. “We’ve also seen a huge range of blog topics from fashion and parenthood to politics, religion and urban planning.”
 
Winners of each category and the People’s Choice Awards each receive $1000 worth of prizes from the Sydney Writers’ Centre our of a prize pool of $7500.
 
FINALISTS IN THE BEST AUSTRALIAN BLOGS COMPETITION
 
Business Category:
    •    Global Copywriting by Sarah Mitchell: www.globalcopywriting.com/blog
    •    Her Business by Suzi Dafnis on behalf of Australian Business Women’s Network: http://blog.abn.org.au/
    •    Kite Power by Jo Hegerty: kitepowerqld.com.au
    •    PR Warrior by Trevor Young: prwarrior.typepad.com
    •    Styling You by Nikki Parkinson: www.stylingyou.com.au
 
Personal/Lifestyle Category:
    •    All Consuming by Kim Berry: www.allconsuming.com.au
    •    Bike Exif - Chris Hunter - www.bikeexif.com
    •    Gora!Gora!Gora! - Jason Staines - www.gora-gora-gora.com
    •    Not Drowning, Mothering  - The NDM  - www.notdrowning.wordpress.com
    •    Not quite Nigella - Lorraine Elliot  - www.notquitenigella.com
    •    Miscellaneous mum - Karen Andrews - www.miscmum.com
    •    Random Ramblings of a Stay at Home Mum- Lori Dwyer - www.rrsahm.com
    •    Tune into Radio Carly - Carly Findlay - www.carlyfindlay.blogspot.com
 
Words Category:
    •    Bothersome Words by Abigail Nathan: www.bothersomewords.com/blog/
    •    Call My Agent! by Agent Sydney (anonymous): www.callmyagent.blogspot.com
    •    Creative Penn by Joanna Penn: www.thecreativepenn.com
    •    Graham Storrs by Graham Storrs: grahamstorrs.cantalibre.com
    •    Musings of a Literary Dilettante by John Boland: www.musingsofaliterarydilettante.wordpress.com
 
Commentary Category:
    •    Darcy Moore by Darcy Moore: www.darcymoore.net
    •    The Failed estate by Bob Denmore: www.thefailedestate.blogspot.com
    •    The Skeptic Lawyer by Katy Barnett and co: skepticlawyer.com.au
    •    News with Nipples by Kim Powell: www.newswithnipples.com
            (No relation to Rose Powell, who is coordinating the competition.)
    •    MolksTVTalk by Steve Molks: www.molkstvtalk.com

Honourable mentions
As there were so many excellent blogs entered in this competition, we have included Honourable Mentions for blogs who just missed out on being Finalists but are worthy of being recognised for quality blogging. These are listed on the Best Australian Blogs website. www.bestaustralianblogs.com.au
 

Win one of our Feature or Creative Writing course from The Pink Fibro blog

One of the wonderful things about writing these days is the vast range of styles and opportunities out there for writers. We discussed blogging on our Twitter and Facebook page recently, about whether it's an encouragement or a distraction to finishing that novel, or batch of articles.

We've got some very exciting plans for celebrating blogging that we're still working on, but you can win a  Feature Writing Stage 1, or Creative Writing Stage 1 course, either face-to-face or online from a wonderful blog called The Pink Fibro written by Allison Tait.

Allison is celebrating her first year blogoversary, and if you're interested in reading a great blog and entering the competition, click here.

Best Librarian/Library EduBlog 2010 Competition Open

We were very excited to bounce into the office on Monday morning and see a tweet from one of our graduates Ian McLean. His blog BookedInn has been nominated for the Best Librarian/Library EduBlog 2010 Competition. Congratulations Ian!

The Edublog awards were created in 2004 because the Australian librarian community was concerned that the schools and institutions were blocking access to learning and teaching blog sites. This competition seeks to encourage and endorse these blogs, so that people become aware of the educational value of online media.

You can find out more about the awards and vote for your favourite one here. There are a lot of quality resources and ideas on the nominated blogs to explore also.