My wonderful friend Wendy Cohen, who worked with Arts Engine, The Huggington Post and founded Screening Liberally, is now with Participant Productions. She alerted me to a new project of Participant called TakePart, where it turns out Gina Telaroli (of Meerkat fame) has named me one of her Top 10 Film Blogs. Wow! She writes, “Into documentaries? You should definitely be visiting Agnes Varnum’s blog about them! She visits lots of fests and always has an interesting perspective on what’s happening in all aspects of documentary.”

Thanks Gina and Wendy for your kind words and support. Looking forward to seeing TakePart shapes up…

My first blog post was on March 23, 2006. In the early posts, and a lot since, I’ve referred to my inspiration at SXSW 2006 and I’m amazed that the uberfest is just around the corner and I will be going again, but this time to be on the “Blogging About Film” panel (Tuesday 3/13). Talk about full circle. As if that weren’t enough to plunge me into deep self-reflexiveness, a new reader - Jay from the Meerkat Media collective - asked me, after perusing my site, “What’s your major goal with it?”

Certainly, it has always been an experiment. Does this technology help create community? YES! I’d love to share the many stories I have from this past year of meeting people, in person and online, that I would never have met had I not been doing this. Over and over again, I get interesting messages from the Contact page, meet people who have read something I’ve written about their movie, or simply hearing from folks I know already that they are enjoying my posts. This creates a fabric between us, a sense that while we are working on our own stuff but we are connected as well. If nothing else, this sense of community has kept me from feeling isolated in what is often a very discouraging business.