VeganMoFo

Hey everyone! I hope you’re excited for VeganMoFo. There’s not long to go now! Don’t forget, you have until the 21st October – this Friday! – to sign up for this year’s event. Sign up here! For those of you who have signed up (or are about to!) we have prepared a media alert for you to share. This is so that you can alert local and international press sources as to what is going on – and get some recognition for your MoFo’ing efforts!

Here’s what to do:

1. First things first, sign on up for VeganMoFo 2016
2. Think & go Google search: What are the local media avenues in my community (state, country, district, town, county, area, favorite blogs, online news sources, etc.)? Is there an alt weekly? Is there a monthly, city-wide cultural magazine and/or website? Where do you see local food & dining news? For example, someone in Portland, OR, would send this to Eater PDX (and there are a ton of Eater sites out there!), Willamette Week, Portland Mercury, Oregonian FoodDay, Oregon Public Broadcasting, Portland Monthly Magazine and a bunch of their favorite culinary-focused blogs. Plus, the huge local vegetarian outreach group, Northwest Veg, other vegan-friendly events that have caught their eye, and maybe, The Kitchn, Serious Eats, and so on. Someone in the UK might send the alert to VegFest UK or one of the vegan magazines in the country! If you’ve been involved with media outlets/events, who are your contacts? Do you have friends that work in PR? Are they relevant and could they help get the word out? Do they like vegan cookies?  Is there a VegFest? Basically, find out their contact email/fax (right?! You can totally send faxes for free online these days in case you actually want to do that). Take note that there is typically a contact specifically *for* media alerts and press releases and calendar info with the bigger outlets. Go cover your ground and spread the word! These days, there are many vegan companies who post through social media (Facebook, Instagram, etc) and you can also send this alert in a message to them if you like – look for local vegan groups and pages, perhaps shops that regularly post vegan “news” articles, and anyone else who you think might be interested!
3. Edit and download a personalized or general copy of the official VeganMoFo Media Alert, as linked below.
4. Save the (ideally revised) Media Alert as a PDF with a clearly marked file name, for example “Media Advisory: VeganMoFo, The Vegan Month of Food Writing Returns November 2016″
5. Next, copy/paste the Media Alert content into the actual email message from title down. I like to do this, it doubles your chances of being read. At the top, if I know who it’s going to well, I’ll often include a little note in a different font and color and sign it, like “Hey Darleen, I’d love for you to take a look at this news! I’ve got a whole month of xxx in store and daily updates! Let me know if you would like more information or photos for a story” (or something a little less lame then that, but I hope you get the point).
6. Make sure you’ve attached a copy of the Media Alert PDF (or Word Doc or whatever you prefer) to the email itself.
7. Press send and let that baby fly, preferably one at a time, but one big blind BCC can do in a pinch (sorry, old college marketing professors, it’s 2016 and I’m busy!)

And here’s how to do it! There are two versions of our shiny, official Media Alert all ready to go below:

OPTION 1) We’ve got the official Media Alert ready to be personalized right this way and copied below. It is super important to make sure you personalize the red area! 

OPTION 2) Here’s a straightforward Media Alert to share as is.

So, get sharing, and get preparing for Vegan MoFo 2016!

Hello everyone!

It’s been a year since the last Vegan MoFo, and I’m sure some of you have been eagerly awaiting news of this year’s event! Well, the good news is you’ve not missed it – and you still have two months to prepare. VeganMoFo 2016 will be held in the month of November. We hope this gives you the chance to explore different seasonal foods, embrace cooking for the holidays, and share with the rest of us your wonderful creations.

This year, we’re giving you three options for participating:

1) Weekly themes (which will be listed below!). You can interpret these themes whichever way you like, and use them to inspire your posts!

2) Daily prompts (which will be also listed below). These tie in with the weekly themes, but give you more specific ideas to follow. You can use all of them, or just a few!

3) Choose your own theme. You don’t need to follow any of our themes if you don’t want to – come up with your own and use that instead! So long as it’s vegan, everything goes.

You can also participate on whichever platform you like – blog, Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, all participation is encouraged, just follow the #veganmofo and #vgnmf16 hashtags.

More information will be released soon about sign ups, and other exciting bits, but in the meantime – get your cooking brain on!

The themes and daily prompts are listed below. Remember – you can follow these as closely or as loosely as you like (or even choose your own). These are just ideas to get your creative juices running!

Week 1: 1st-6th November 2016 Treat Yourself (and others)!

1st: Your favourite food – What is your favourite food? Make it and share!
2nd: How to make friends – What’s your go to “impress me” meal?
3rd: Treat yourself…to a break – What’s your “easy cook” meal? That you make when you can’t be bothered to cook much?
4th: Eating out – Where do you eat when you want someone else to cook for you?
5th: Late Night Snack – Tell us what you’re midnight snacking on!
6th: Comfort food – Something that always cheers you up.

Week 2: 7th-13th November 2016 International Week

7th: Close to Home – Make a food from your own country, state, or hometown.
8th: Far Away – If you dug straight down, where would you come out? Make something from that country!
9th: Something Different – Cook a cuisine you’ve never tried before. Or, one you don’t make often enough.
10th: Fusion Food – Take two cuisines and make them work together.
11th: Favourite Cuisine – Where does your  favourite food come from?
12th: Dream Holiday Destination – what would you eat on your dream holiday?
13th: Feed the Alien – An alien lands on your doorstep. What are they going to eat?

Week 3: 14th-20th November 2016 Rainbow Week

14th: Monochrome meal – Make some food that is all based around one colour only.
15th: Multicolour – Fit as many colours as you can into one meal!
16th: Complementary colours – For instance, Red & Green, Purple & Yellow, Blue & Orange
17th: Something Rare – What colour do you rarely eat? Make something that colour!
18th: Greyscale – Can you make your food look like a photo taken with a black and white camera? Or take a photo in black and white that looks great.
19th: Goth Day – Blues, purples, blacks? Let your dark side shine.
20th: It’s Easy Being Green – Look after the environment, or just eat green veg – go green today!

Week 4: 21st-27th November 2016 Memories & Traditions

21st: Favourite memory – What’s your favourite ever food memory? Recreate it.
22nd: Silly food – What are some silly food traditions/memories you have?
23rd: Autumn/Fall Traditions – Are there any foods you traditionally make in this season?
24th: Thanksgiving – Americans, what are you making for Thanksgiving? Non-Americans, have a go at making something thanksgiving inspired!
25th: Vegan Memories – What was your first vegan meal? Or the one you remember the most?
26th: Cookbooks – Show us your favourite cookbooks!
27th: Changed Opinion – Was there a food you used to hate, and now don’t?

Week 5: 28th-30th November 2016 Holidays!

28th: Holiday Bake Day! – What are you planning on baking over the winter holidays? Do you make cake, or cookies? Or something savoury?
29th: Holiday Test Run – It’s always good to practice – show off your hits and misses.
30th: Food Gifts – Do you like to give food as a gift? Or receive? Show/tell us!