If you’ve got a little extra creative energy going into the new year – and maybe have a few thrilling, bizarre, unique, or just plain interesting stories running through your head – submit your work to the annual Wisconsin People & Ideas’ 2022 Fiction and Poetry Contest, which is open for submissions through March 15. Since 1994, this literary magazine has awarded Wisconsin-based writers and poets awards for excellence, accepting work from anyone in the Dairyland aged 18 or older. Awards for this year’s contest include up to $500 and other prizes, as well as publication in Wisconsin People & Ideas, a reading at the Wisconsin Book Festival in Madison, and a one-week residency at the Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts at Mineral Point. This year’s judges include Amy Quan Barry (fiction), Rebecca Dunham (poetry), as well as contest screeners C.X. Dillhunt, Josh Ruffin, and Claude Clayton Smith. Entry fee is $10 for academy members, or $15 for nonmembers. For more information about the contest, visit wisconsinacademy.org/content/writing-contests.