NEW YORK — The creative writing nonprofit Poets & Writers and the publishers of Poets & Writers magazine is inviting Maine writers to apply for the 2017 Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award.

The organizations choose a different state every year to invite applicants to apply from.

One fiction writer and one poet from Maine will be selected to receive an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City to meet with top literary professionals, including editors, agents, publishers and prominent writers. While in New York, winners will also give a reading hosted by Poets & Writers. Each winner is also invited to spend a month at the Jentel Artist Residency Program in Banner, Wyoming.

The 2017 judges are Tania James for fiction and Cynthia Cruz for poetry.

To be eligible, writers must be current residents of Maine who have lived here for the past two years, and not have published more than one full-length book in the genre in which they are applying.

The prestigious award, which aims to provide promising writers a network for professional advancement, has helped to launch the careers of Sue Monk Kidd, author of “The Secret Life of Bees”; Elaine Beale, “Another Life Altogether”; Sandra Beasley, “Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl”; David Mura, “Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei”; Fae Myenne Ng, “Bone”; and Mona Simpson, “My Hollywood.”

Since Poets & Writers launched the exchange in 1984, more than 90 writers from 38 states and the District of Columbia have been selected to participate. The award is supported by Maureen Egen, member of the Poets & Writers board of directors and retired deputy chairman and publisher of Hachette Book Group USA.

Entries must be postmarked by Jan. 9, 2017.

FMI, guidelines, application: www.pw.org/about-us/maureen_egen_writers_exchange_award.