Exciting news: Kate of The Manchizzle has teamed up with Chris of Mancubist to produce a new website sporting a ‘writers map’ of Manchester for local content. Kate:

It uses a Google map of the city to organise stories or poetry linked to particular places. Readers can click on a place marked by the little cloud icon to read a piece of writing associated with that spot.

This looks like a fantastic project. It’s local, it uses web2 new media (and all that jazz), and it has some great potential.

Of the stories that are up I particularly liked Rats and Mice by Mike Duff.

It’s short enough to to be readable on the web, and drew me in quickly enough to keep my attention to the end. And it’s a nice bit of writing to boot.

I think perhaps the little speech-bubble/cloud icons on the map could do with being a bit more visible, but I like the idea. (Since they asked for feedback).

Both Kate and Chris speak of new developments on the horizon, so it will be interesting to see firstly how the project takes off, and then where they take it. Watch that space (and get involved too!)

The ‘writers map’ brings to mind a BBC local media project that is on the cards (as far as I know), involving local maps pinned with multi-media content. Lets hope that if that does arrive it doesn’t harm the progress of Rainy City Stories.

Well done Kate and Chris.