Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding has launched a comedy writing prize in the name of her most famous creation, aimed at unearthing funny new voices from the north of England.

The Bridget Jones prize for northern comedy writing will go to the funniest self-contained, first-person prose of 1,000 words. The format echoes the anonymous diary columns in the Independent that first brought Bridget to readers in the mid-1990s.

Fielding, who grew up in Yorkshire, wrote the original columns and four Bridget Jones novels, as well as co-writing the blockbuster film adaptations starring Renée Zellweger.

She said Bridget's humour was drawn from the people she grew up with: "laughing together at our mess-ups; bringing the fancy and pretentious down to earth".

"There are lots of famous northern comics," she said. "But this prize is for the comic voices of people who aren't famous: just living their lives being quietly hilarious."

Writers living in the north who have neither been published nor signed with an agent are eligible to enter. There is no entry fee and the winner will take home £2,000, plus a session with Aitken Alexander Associates, the agency that represents Fielding, and tailored support from the charity New Writing North. One runner-up will get £1,000.

Fielding was strict about the word limit. "I always tried to make the Bridget columns exactly 1,000 words long – like making the petrol pump stop at exactly 20 quid," she said. "If it's slightly under you won't be punished. Just DON'T MAKE IT ANY LONGER!"

Fielding will judge alongside an Aitken Alexander agent and a representative from New Writing North, and the winner will be revealed at next summer's Northern Writers' awards in Newcastle, with the prize presented by Fielding. The prize will be given out each year until 2029.

Will Mackie from New Writing North said: "This is the first time the Northern Writers' awards have featured an award exclusively for comedy writing.

"There is no one more fitting to identify an original comedy voice than Helen, who created one of the nation's most beloved comic characters of the last 30 years."

Fielding cited Victoria Wood, Alan Bennett, Les Dawson, Thora Hird and Morecambe and Wise as inspirations.

Submissions open on 23 November and close on 1 February 2027.