Minnesota magazine, the University of Minnesota Alumni Association's magazine, is accepting submissions for its 12th annual fiction contest, which this year will be judged by Ian Graham Leask. Leask is author of "The Wounded and Other Stories About Sons and Fathers," host of KFAI-FM's "Write on Radio" and publisher of Scarletta Press. The competition is open to all alumni and students of the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus.

The winning story will be published in the summer issue and on the website, and the author will receive $2,000. Guidelines are online at www.minnesotaalumni.org/fiction. The deadline is Feb. 7, and the winner will be notified in April.

Also ...

•The Fireside Reading Series at the Hamline-Midway Branch Library begins Wednesday with Peter Geye reading from "Safe from the Sea," his novel about an estranged father and son, set along Minnesota's wintery North Shore. Subsequent authors include three Coffee House Press poets, Lightsey Darst, Greg Hewett and Steve Healey, on Jan. 26; William Kent Krueger, Feb. 2; Bonnie Blodgett, Feb. 9; Will Weaver, Feb. 16; and Swati Avasthi, Feb. 23. The cozy Fireside Series features coffee, hot cider, cookies and readings by local writers, beginning at 7 p.m. for six Wednesdays. The library is at 1558 W. Minnehaha Blvd., St. Paul.

•January's Readings by Writers features Marcus Young, St. Paul's artist-in-residence and the creator of Everyday Poems for City Sidewalk, which presses poems into the wet concrete of new sidewalks, and Greg Brick, author of "Subterranean Twin Cities," which explores the network of sewers beneath the streets where the poems are impressed. The event is at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the University Club, 420 Summit Av., St. Paul, and is hosted by St. Paul poet laureate Carol Connolly.

•In Stillwater, the fourth "Writers on Writing" will feature three authors discussing their journey to publishing. Jim Trevis ("A Mile of Dreams"), Colleen Baldrica ("Tree Spirited Woman") and Spike Carlsen ("A Splintered History of Wood") will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday at ArtReach St. Croix, 224 N. 4th St., Stillwater. It's free and open to the public.

•"Anishinaabe Syndicated: A View From the Rez," by Jim Northrup, has been published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press.