We’re little over a week away from the debut outing of the Manchester Weekender, a collection of ‘the best of Manchester’s art and culture’. From 1-3 October, for 48 hours, the city showcases itself through an unmanageably large number of events. I thought, therefore, it might be helpful to pick some personal highlights direct from the programme:

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer at Manchester Art Gallery. A major new exhibition of interactive digital artworks by Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, including the world premiere of a large-scale installation People on People, a co-commission with AND festival. The Gallery hosts an evening of live electronica by Marconi Union alongside what’s being billed as ‘interactive activity’ from Lewis Sykes in its glass-roofed atrium.

Un-convention is one of the UK’s most eclectic independent music industry events containing much for those who just love (rather than work in) new music. Employing such unconventional spaces as a barge, Salford Lads’ Club and a church, featuring Bill Drummond, Jarvis Cocker, Jon McClure, Brian Travers and Kevin Cummins – all doing ‘interesting things in the most unexplored places in the city’ – with a travelling circus, music photography projected onto buildings, Colombian Hip Hop, Jah Wobble, the BBC Philharmonic and a brass band as well.

Contemporary Cartography //01 is a pocket map that provides an overview of what makes up the creative ecology of the city (via its contemporary galleries and underground art spaces) and, to celebrate its launch, there are a number of Contemporary Cartography Tours. The map coincides with the launch of Creative Tourist’s new iPhone app. – a guide to the art and culture of Manchester.

See Manchester by water where a family boat party connects the Manchester Ship Canal with the River Irwell and puts food by one of the Northwest’s top chefs, Robert Owen Brown, on the menu.

Hidden Manchester is a very special, secret tour to one of the city’s most spectacular, but rarely seen by the public, buildings created and led by the city’s most popular guide, the broadcaster and historian Jonathan Schofield, especially for the Manchester Weekender.

You can pick your own highlights, or read more about the above events, in Creative Tourist’s Weekender guide. There’s also a pdf guide to the Manchester Weekender.

Happy 2010 readers! I hope you had a good break, and are enjoying slipping and sliding all over Manchester. Best snow-based construction this week? Easy: the king-sized throne outside Ridelow on Dale Street.

I’m getting back into the swing of Mancubisting – and one thing that has drawn my attention lately is this:

Stuart Maconie, co-host of the Radcliffe and Maconie Show on BBC Radio 2 and host of The Freak Zone on 6Music, will give a reading from his latest book, Adventures on the High Teas, and talk about the quirks and delights of his travels in the pursuit of Middle England … via Manchester.

High Tea with Stuart Maconie takes place at Mosi on Liverpool Road this coming Sunday. It’s £8 for a ticket – and with that you get a traditional English cream tea. Click here to book online, or call 0844 847 2261.

[I spotted this event via the increasingly useful Visit Manchester Blog.]

Everybody’s favourite Mancunian literature/drinking event, No Point In Not Being Friends, is taking a hard-earned break I’ve just discovered:

In part, to concentrate on planning a couple of big summer/autumn events we’ve got coming up (Camp Bestival and the Manchester Literature Festival) but also, because No Point is going to have a bit of a format change when it emerges from its spring cocoon, we think.

Chris and Sally go on to warn that a new No Point ‘may not be monthly anymore, and it might not even be in the same place’, which would be a pity as the Deaf Institute has a lot of fans – myself included. We await its future direction with bated breath!

In the meantime, Manchester’s literary scene continues to develop. CityLife devoted a double-page spread to it on Friday – and the website is chock full of news and features, such as Carol Ann Duffy being named as Manchester’s first female poet laureate and a preview of Paper Planes, a creative writing workshop that takes place in Fuel in Withington this coming Saturday. Katie Popperwell and her writers there doing a great job of giving editorial coverage to things that may otherwise pass us by, so long may that continue.

Tonight, meanwhile, there’s another literature event happening: the eighth instalment of The Other Room, which features Matt Dalby, Alex Davies and Allen Fisher, takes place at The Old Abbey Inn on Manchester Science Park from 7pm.

And finally, the Writing School at Man Met has launched this year’s Manchester Fiction Prize, with £10,000 up for grabs and a deadline of 7 August set. Visit the Manchester Writing Competition website for more information on that.

Nope, not of the soppy variety. And in fact I’m bypassing the whole event myself by heading out to Hebden Bridge to see Denis Jones play at the launch a new quarterly folk night. If you’re in Manchester, however, there are a couple of interesting things going on tomorrow…

The first is at the Royal Exchange, where Brad Fraser’s True Love Lies is in the middle of its world premiere run. The play – ‘think Six Feet Under meets My Family’ – is gaining nothing but very favourable reviews. It’s on until 21 February and tickets are priced £8.50 to £29.

The other is taking place at Nexus Art Cafe on Dale Street in the Northern Quarter. From 10am right through to 7pm, the place is being transformed into a ‘Wagamama-esque banquet hall’ in order to create ‘a space to meet brand spanking new people and make brand spanking new friends’. I read somewhere that they’re also getting a piano in, for one night only.

The other hugely important Valentine’s Day-related news is that over at Rainy City Stories we’ve picked a winner for our love story contest! It’s called The Shortest, The Coldest and it’s written by first-time writer Craig Melville. There were five finalists in total – and I’m very pleased because my three favourites (from the 56 stories and poems submitted) made that shortlist. Check them out here.

[Lovely badges courtesy of www.koolbadges.co.uk]