A call has gone out for budding writers for this year's literary competition put on by the Mountaineering Council of Scotland. To enter you don't have to be a member, or even resident in Scotland.

Since 1987 the MCofS has run an annual Mountain Article Competition to showcase the best mountain writing, be it fact or fiction, prose or poetry. There's only one requirement: Articles should have some connection with mountains and mountaineering, rock or ice climbing, walking or ski-mountaineering.

Winning entries get a cash prize and the chance to see their piece in print in The Scottish Mountaineer, the quarterly MCofS magazine which goes out to more than 11,000 members.

The first-placed winners in the prose and poetry categories will also receive a free weekend pass (worth £100) to the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival, where the results will be announced.

Prose entries should be a maximum of 2000 words long, but poetry entries can be as long or as short as you like. The competition is open to anyone resident in the UK, whether members of the MCofS or not.

Get writing. The deadline for this year’s competition is 15th September.

Entries should be sent to the MAC Coordinator, Mike Merchant, preferably by email or by hard copy to MCofS, ‘MAC2013’, The Old Granary, West Mill Street, Perth PH1 5QP.

Full details of the competition are available on the MCofS website.