Today J-Lab announced that four innovating women-led news projects have won grants to develop their ideas. This year's winners include projects to cover the cultural narrative of food, build online platforms for long-form women writers, expand Latino coverage in New England, and spotlight emerging women musicians.

Now in its sixth year, the J-Lab/McCormick Foundation New Media Women Entrepreneurs grant program received 205 proposals for 2013. The winners will each receive funding to develop their ideas in the next year:

• AmericanFoodRoots.com, a "StoryCorps-meets-James Beard initiative to tell the nation's cultural, historical and personal food stories in video, audio and text."
• First Person Female A profit-sharing platform to be developed for digital publication of quality, long-form journalism, memoir and fiction by women writers.
• LatinoNewsNetwork. This eight-month-old serving English language-dominant Latinos that will expand from Connecticut to Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
• Boxx Magazine. This newly launched website cover female artists who are shaping the music industry.

NMWE grantees have a strong track record. Jan Schaffer, executive director J-Lab (which administers the program with McCormick Foundation funding) noted that so far "100 % of our winners have launched and 72% are still going strong."

Each of the winners will receive $12,000 over the next year, plus $2,000 more upon raising a match of $2,000. Project leaders will blog about their startups at NewMediaWomen.org. Congratulations to the winners!