Announcing the Assistance Dog Blog Carnival!

**UPDATE**

The Assistance Dog Blog Carnival is now taking place! Read Assistance Dog Blog Carnival #1! Enjoy!

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Woohoo! Thank you to everyone who commented on my idea to hold an AD Carnival! In response to your enthusiastic support, I’m announcing the first carnival topic and deadline, plus answering your questions about what a carnival is, how it works, and how you can participate!

What Is a Blog Carnival?

Wikipedia has a good general definition:

A blog carnival . . . is similar to a magazine, in that it is dedicated to a particular topic, and is published on a regular schedule. . . . Each edition of a blog carnival is in the form of a blog article that contains permalinks to other blog articles on the particular topic.

Carnival posts are generally collated by the author by soliciting relevant contributions. . . [S/he then] collects links to these submissions, edits and annotates them and publishes the resulting round-up. . . . Many carnivals have a . . . principal organizer, who lines up guest bloggers to host each edition. . . . The carnival travels, appearing on a different blog each time.

How Will the Assistance Dog Carnival Work?

Currently, the plan is to hold it quarterly, guest hosted by a different AD-related blog each time. (More details on this below.) I guess After Gadget will be the official home/principal organizer, until or unless someone else wants to take the job off my hands!

Who Can Submit Posts?

Anyone can submit a post. You need only have a blog, and your post must relate to the topic of guide, hearing, or service dogs (and fit that issue’s theme — see below about themes), even if your blog is not typically about assistance dogs.

Posts can be about puppy raising, SDiTs, programs/schools, retired SDs, perspectives on ADs from people with disabilities not partnered with ADs, or anything else relating to the topic of assistance dogs. You do not need to be an AD partner or trainer to submit. Posts from personal blogs as well as from AD organization blogs are welcome.

What Will the Assistance Dog Carnival Be About?

Topics will vary with each edition. The host for each edition will announce their theme at least a couple of weeks ahead of time (maybe more, if possible, to give us people with deadline issues a chance to get something in?), along with the deadline for submissions and expected publication date.

Examples of themes from the Disability Blog Carnival include identity, distance, and disability and work. In the Patients for a Moment (PFAM) blog carnival, there was “love or other four-letter-words” and “your most laugh-out-loud-illness-moment,” among others.

I tend to like themes that are broad and can be interpreted many different ways, because that gives bloggers creative freedom and makes for a diverse group of posts to read. On the other hand, sometimes it’s nice to know what you’ll be reading, thematically.

Who Is Hosting This Year’s Carnival?

The first host will be me, right here — theme and deadline announcement below! — and our delightful hosts for the next three carnivals are as follows:

• Dog’s Eye View — January 2011
• The Trouble Is… — April 2011
  
• Brilliant Mind Broken Body — July 2011

Yay! Thank you for stepping up!

Future hosts and dates to be determined.

When Will the First Assistance Dog Blog Carnival Be Announced?

Right this very instant coffee.

The theme for the first carnival will be . . . “The First”!

The first . . . what? That’s up to the bloggers.

The first time you met your new guide, the first service dog you had, the first time your AD alerted to your medical condition, your first experience as a puppy raiser, how you dealt with your first access denial, the first thought that pops into your head when you see an AD team, the fear you had to get over first before you decided to partner with a canine assistant . . . the possibilities are endless!

The deadline for submission is Tuesday, October 19, by midnight of whatever time zone you’re in. The carnival will be published a few days later. (How fast I can put it together depends on  how many submissions I get and how functional and/or busy I am that week.)

Bloggers can submit posts any time between now and the 18th by commenting here, below, with the name of the blog, the name of the post, and the URL for that post. You can either write something new especially for the carnival (which is nice, but not required) or post a link to a blog you’ve already written that fulfills the theme. Just be sure the link is live and the post is already up when you submit it, so I can go read your submission when I’m putting together the carnival.

Making your blog as accessible as possible to people with as many different disabilities as possible is encouraged, although it is not required. Here is one resource for learning about some basic things you can do to make your blog more accessible.

I’ve tried to answer all possible questions, so that probably means I’ve forgotten something. Feel free to ask in the comments section.

I’m really excited that this is happening! Thanks to everyone who has commented, volunteered, and is otherwise contributing! And please, spread the word! Write about the carnival on your blog, post links, tweet, etc. Thank you!

Kisses from Barnum.

-Sharon and the muse of Gadget