MARQUETTE — The Dandelion Cottage Short Story Contest, organized by the Upper Peninsula Publishers and Authors Association, is now open to short story submissions by students in the Upper Peninsula.

The contest is accepting submissions from fifth- through 12th-grade students who attend or are being homeschooled in an Upper Peninsula school district. The next contest deadline is Jan. 31. Per rules of the contest, submissions are accepted in two categories: fifth to eighth grades and ninth to12th grades.

Any teacher in an Upper Peninsula school district may nominate up to two short stories per grade segment. Stories entered should not exceed 5,000 words in length. The top prize is $250 cash for first-place senior division winner and $150 cash for junior division winner; there are no entry fees for writers.

UPPAA also announces an expansion of the prizes beginning with this year’s contest. In previous years, only a single winner was selected in the lower-grade division. Now there will be parity, with three prizes awarded for both tiers of contestants.

The middle-grade prizes will be: first prize $150, second prize $75 and third prize $25. The judges have been consistently impressed with the quality of these youngest writers and it is their hope that more will participate as a result of this year’s expansion.

Last year’s first-place winners of the Dandelion Cottage Award were Lauryn Ramme, senior division, and Paige Griffin, junior division.

The Dandelion Cottage Story Contest gives young authors an opportunity to participate in a literary event specifically organized to nourish their creative writing talent. The top three prizewinning entries from high school writers and fifth- through eighth-grade groups will appear in volume No. 7 of the U.P. Reader, an anthology of short stories and poetry from members of the UPPAA. Their stories will also be recorded in audiobook form by Brandy Thomas of Marquette. Additionally, when released in April, 40 copies of the U.P. Reader will be donated to rural libraries across the Superiorland district.

Winners and their families are invited as well to a special award ceremony June 3 at the UPPAA Spring Conference.

Interested parents can go to http://www.dandelioncottage.org/ to learn more about the Dandelion Cottage Short Story Contest.