West Virginia Writers, Inc., is now accepting submissions for its annual spring writing contest, offering a total of $6,000 in cash prizes in 13 categories. The writing contest, which has been held each year since 1982, makes three cash awards and honorable mentions in each category of the competition.

Submissions are accepted through Mar. 15 (with a late deadline of Mar. 31). The contest is open to all residents of West Virginia as well as to any member of WV Writers, Inc. residing outside of the state. Among the traditional contest categories are Children’s Picture Books, Humor, Appalachian Writing, Book Length Prose (either fiction or nonfiction), Short Poetry, Long Poetry, Short Story, Short Nonfiction, Emerging Writers Prose and Emerging Writers Poetry.

There is a $10 fee for each entry into the contest, and $12 for the book-length category.

In addition to the adult contest, WV Writers also holds a student contest for prose and poetry that is open to young writers in three different age groups, grades 1 5, grades 6 8 and grades 9 12. The student categories are absolutely free and available only to students living in West Virginia. There are cash prizes available in all student competition and high school students may opt to enter the adult competition as well.

Winners of the annual contest will be announced on June 9, 2012 at the WVW Annual State Writers Conference, held at Cedar Lakes Conference Center in Ripley, W.Va.

For more information and an official contest entry form and contest rules, visit the WV Writers website at www.wvwriters.org/contest.html.