CAPE ELIZABETH – The Maine Press Association is ready to award more than $2,300 in fellowship money this summer to members who want to attend training sessions in the coming year.

Applications will be accepted until June 1 for grants to fund professional training offered any time between July 1, 2005, and June 30, 2006.

Since 2001-02, the association has made $4,000 in fellowship money available each year. So far in 2004-05, three fellowships, worth more than $1,660, have been awarded.

Christine Parrish, a general assignment reporter for the VillageSoup Citizen in Belfast, won more than $615 to attend the Nieman Foundation’s Conference on Narrative Journalism Dec. 3 to 5 in Cambridge, Mass.

Caroline King, staff writer at the Original Irregular in Kingfield, was awarded $415 to attend the New England Press Association’s annual convention in February at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston.

Eric Kaiser, Web editor for the Sun Journal in Lewiston, got a $632 fellowship to pay part of the cost for the CLIK Conference in Lawrence, Kan., an intensive two-day session on convergence between print, broadcast and online media.

In the last six years, the fellowship program has provided a total of more than $20,000 to fund training opportunities for staffers at MPA newspapers.

To request any or all of this year’s remaining grant money, send an application and include a letter of recommendation from an immediate supervisor and a letter from a senior manager indicating the newspaper’s support for your application.

Send applications to Jeff Ham, 26 Elmwood Road, Cape Elizabeth, ME 04107 or to [email protected]. Winners will be notified by June 15.

The application form is on the MPA’s Web site, www.mainepress.org. For more information, call 1-800-799-6008 or e-mail [email protected].