Bridport Arts Centre are asking for your poems and short stories for their latest competition – The Bridport Prize 2010.

In each category there is a first prize of £5000, as well as second and third prizes of £1000 and £500 respectively, and ten supplementary prizes of £50 – so it could be well worth your while entering.

In addition, there will be a further prize of £100 and a perpetual trophy awarded to the best local (Dorset, UK) winner or runner-up. And all winning poems and short stories will be published in the Bridport Prize 2010 Anthology.

The winning and short-listed short stories will be read by leading London literary agents with a view to representing writers, and also (those eligible) will be submitted to the National Short Story Prize, worth £15,000, and the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, worth £25,000.

All the winners will be invited to Dorset for a prize-giving lunch in Bridport on 31^st October, 2010.

All entries will be judged anonymously, and amateur and professional writers will compete on an equal footing. This year the judges are – founder of the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, Michael Laskey, for poetry; and journalist and novelist, Zoe Heller, for the short stories.

There is a fee for entering - £6 per poem or £7 per short story. Poems must be no more than 42 lines, and short stories no more than 5000 words (there is no minimum length for either). The closing date for all entries is the 30^th June 2010.

You can find out more and enter online at: www.bridportprize.org.uk/