blogger-in-chief

Hey all,

It's official. I will be blogger-in-chief for the 2008 edition of THIN AIR, the Winnipeg International Writers' Festival (Sept. 21-28).

For last year's blog, I composed 25 multimedia posts while also showing up at my admittedly-part-time day-job. This year, given that's a PAID gig, I can justify spending more/all of my time at the festival.

Now I just need to find me some (volunteer) bloggers for the next incarnation of the I-think-aptly-named HOT AIR.

The bloggy job description is as follows (and here I'm quoting from my proposal to the WIWF):

The HOT AIR crew will consist of three volunteers approached by me in consultation with the WIWF. The crew will provide a minimum of 3-4 text-based posts each over the seven days of the festival. There is no maximum contribution, however, and crew can contribute as much text, photos, and multimedia content they feel comfortable producing.

Unlike most arts reporting, the goal of HOT AIR blogging is to create personalities that audience members are interested in following. Though blog posts will function as in-house previews (and documentation) of many THIN AIR events, they will also work to create a dialogue around the festival.

On offer to the lucky handful are free tickets to Mainstage events, festival paraphenalia (t-shirt, mug), and the opportunity to rub shoulders, elbows, and ankles with book-ish folk.

In particular, I'm looking for people interested in the following...

1) Social Columnist. I’d like to expand on the kind of coverage that the lovely/talented/book-launching Daria Salamon provided last year, doing 2-3 social/gossip/fashion columns. Ideally, I’d like to assign this to one blogger, but we’ll see who I recruit and what their interests are…

2) People of the Fest. I’d like to have one photo a day that contains a mini-profile of an audience member or volunteer, a sort of 10-seconds-with-X combined with what-are-you-wearing.

I'm also looking for 'list-y' bloggers. Not in the haunt-the-hospitality-suite sort of way. More of the making-a-list-checking-it-thrice kind.

Possibilities are endless, but include top ten must-see events, top ten writers you discovered at the festival, books you purchased at the WIWF. Each blogger could come up with 2-3 lists over the course of the week, which would be posted in the sidebar, which is currently dead space, as we don’t have extensive links lists or other sidebar-y content. Lists could be shared via social networking sites like List of Bests, which would allow readers to ‘adopt’ those lists and complete them, either by attending the listed events or by reading the listed books.

So if you're at all interested or know anyone that would be at all interested, please contact me...

Fun!

Now all I have to do is set up a new blog, contact authors for the preview posts I've sworn to do, and attend the Sept. 3 press conference announcing this year's list.