Two Texas establishments are looking to honor books authored by home state poets and fiction writers.

Recently published writers from Texas or who write about Texas themes could be eligible for prizes ranging from twelve hundred dollars to six thousand dollars.

Texas Christian University's biennial TCU Texas Book Award, which offers a prize of five thousand dollars, is open until December 31 to books of prose "about Texas" that were published in 2009 and 2010. The award has recognized one writer of literary fiction or creative nonfiction since the inaugural prize in 2003, Stephen Harrigan's Gates of the Alamo (Knopf, 2000), which was set in nineteenth-century Texas (others have been given to research-based nonfiction writers).

The Texas Institute of Letters is also seeking literary standouts in poetry, short fiction, and the novel for its literary awards. The six-thousand-dollar Jesse H. Jones Award is given for a novel or short story collection, and two one-thousand-dollar awards are given for a first book of fiction and a published short story. One volume of poetry is recognized with the twelve-hundred-dollar Helen C. Smith Memoiral Award, and a writer of nonfiction (including creative nonfiction) will receive the Carr P. Collins Award of five thousand dollars. Eligible titles, published in 2010, should be submitted directly to the judges by January 8, 2011.

And for Texas writers of any publishing stripe longing for time to write? Now might be the time to check out the residency fellowships offered by the University of Texas at J. Frank Dobie's former ranch house west of Austin. The application deadline is January 15, 2011.

Britain-based indie Holland Park Press is holding its first, free competition for a short story, with a prize of one hundred pounds sterling (roughly $150) and publication in the press's online magazine. The King of Tuzla Short Story Competition, named after the press's recently published novel by Dutch poet and fiction writer Arnold Jansen op de Haar, is open to stories set in a conflict zone similar to the one the author creates in his book, set during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia (Tuzla is a city in Bosnia and Herzegovina that witnessed a civilian massacre in 1995).

Eligible stories, limited to one thousand words, should approach a narrative from the point of view of a single main character and must be set in the past or present, but not the future. "Your tale could unfold, for example, during the troubles in Northern Ireland," the press states in its guidelines. "It could just as well describe life in a refugee camp during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, or take place in the present time inside a remote village in Afghanistan."

The deadline for entries is December 31, and stories must be sent via e-mail. Instructions on how to compile a submission are available on the press's Web site.

In the video below, King of Tuzla author Arnold Jansen op de Haar, also an ex-soldier, gives a tour of his writing space and reads from his published works.