COLCHESTER – Green Mountain Power (GMP) and VERMONT Magazine are urging writers to get their entries ready for one of the state’s premiere literary contests, the Vermont Writer’s Prize. The prize is awarded in two categories — prose and poetry. Each winner receives $1,250 and their works will be published in VERMONT Magazine’s Summer 2022 issue.

Submissions can be essays, short stories or poems that focus on “Vermont — Its People, Its Places, Its History or Its Values.” The prize was launched in 1989 to celebrate writing about Vermont and Vermonters, while honoring the literary legacy of the late Ralph Nading Hill Jr., a Vermont historian and writer and longtime member of GMP’s board of directors.

“Vermont is full of wonderful perspectives, and what Vermont means to us is different for everyone. Each year we receive heartfelt reflections on the Vermont experience, and I’m looking forward to reading the latest entries to see how our amazing state inspires another group of talented Vermonters,” said Steve Costello, a writers’ prize judge and vice president at GMP.

Entries are being accepted now, and the deadline is Jan. 1. They must be unpublished, works of prose less than 1,500 words long, and poems less than 40 lines. Individuals may submit only one work. Entrants may be amateur or professional writers. Employees of VERMONT Magazine or Green Mountain Power and previous winners are ineligible. You can submit your entry at /vermontwritersprize. submittable.com/submit/86155/ vermont-writers-prize.