English Department Awards and Accolades

At PPSC, we're proud of the achievements of our faculty, staff, and students. This page is dedicated to the Awards and Accolades received by the English Department's faculty, staff, and students.

Current and Former Student Awards, Accolades, and Publications• Former PPSC student Brianna Skaggs, now a student at the University of Utah, won the 2019 university/college category of the annual essay contest sponsored by the McCarthey Family Foundation in conjunction with its lecture series "In Praise of Independent Journalism." She will receive a check for $4,000 and be recognized on Saturday, Nov. 9, 2019, at the 14th annual McCarthey Family Foundation Lecture at 7 p.m. at Rowland Hall in Salt Lake City. The event will feature Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian Jon Meacham.

Mark Hernandez has creative pieces in Tempered Steel: Tempered Steel, vol. 26, 2016 and Tempered Steel, vol. 27, 2017. 

Chris Jordahl had a poem, "The Sins of the Father" published in riverrun September 2019. 

Andy Kroll had a poem "Retrograde" published in Issue 94 of Right Hand Pointing, and a Flash Fiction/Prose piece titled "Hidden Eclipses" published in Crab Fat Magazine. 

Alex Morgan had a piece, "April," published in Vol. III of One Hundred Voices. In 2018, Alex Morgan received top place and the $1,000 prize in the Colorado Authors' League's annual scholarship contest for the creative non-fiction essay, "How Writing Will Benefit My Profession." Alex Morgan had the short story "Descendants of the Awoken," published in the 359th edition of the Webzine Schlock! Magazine. Alex Morgan had the Novella length creative work, "Wilfred's Price," published in the Scarlet Leaf Review.

In 2016, Monica Postma had the poem, "Always a Child," published in U.S. Represent

 Abigail Van Kirk had the flash piece, "Never Know Who You're Sleeping Next To," published in ZeroFlash. In 2015, Abigail Van Kirk had the poem "Gunnison," published in U.S. Represented. Abigail Van Kirk had a Haiku published in Issue 42 of Haiku Journal. Abigail Van Kirk had the poem, "On a Modern Movement [Criticisms]," published in the Caravel Literary Arts Journal.

Faculty Awards, Accolades, and Publications

Take a moment to enjoy works from the Pikes Peak State College Faculty and Staff Creative Writers' Group, The Nearby Universe.

Brook Bhagat’s story “The Goddess Becomes” has been published in A Story in 100 Words.

Carina Bissett’s short story "Burning Bright" was published in the anthology Gorgon: Stories of Emergence: 1.

Amie Sharp’s chapbook of poems, The Sabine Women, was awarded the Emergence Chapbook Series Prize from Red Dragonfly Press, and is now available. Two poems by Amie Sharp, “Beryllium” and “Picasso’s Sabine Women, 1962,” have been published in the anthology The 64: The 64 Best Poets of 2018, by Black Mountain Press. Amie Sharp will be giving poetry readings at the Sundress Academy for the Arts Spring Reading Series in Knoxville, Tennessee, in February, 2020, and at the Mad Blood Presents “Final Friday” event in Evergreen, Colorado, in March.

Cindy Skaggs’s short story "Legacy" has been published in So To Speak Feminist Journal. At the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Conference in September, Cindy Skaggs presented "Moon Struck and Minor Characters" and "This is my Circus; These are my Monkeys: Crafting Multi-character Scenes.”

Rowman & Littlefield will be publishing a book by Candace R. Craig and James D. Reid: Agency and Imagination in the Films of David Lynch. It is set to release on December 15.

Carol Forseth and Gary Walker will be presenting along with Christine Arnold at the 2019 CADE Conference: Cultivating Student Success: Maintaining Equity in Education at the Centennial campus on Oct. 25.

Gary Walker has progressed to the third round of the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge. In the first two rounds, his pieces have placed in the top fifteen in his categories. There have been 3,500+ writers participating from around the world.

David Neis is presenting at the national NACADA conference Oct. 21-23 in Louisville, KY. His talk is about how academic advisors can help 2-and 4-year students stay motivated toward meeting selective admission programs in business and health care.

Lindsay Zeller will be presenting at the 117th Pacific Ancient and Modern Language (PAMLA) Conference in San Diego, starting November 15. The theme this year is "Send in the Clowns," and she's presenting in a Television Studies panel. Her paper is entitled, "The Zombie as Hero: Santa Clarita Diet's Satirical Treatment of Suburbia, the Undead, and American Ideals."

Brook Bhagat's poetry collection, Only Flying, will be published in November 2021 by Unsolicited Press.

The second edition of Kathy Sparrow's book, Ignite Your Leadership: Proven Tools for Leaders to Energize Teams, Fuel Momentum, and Accelerate Results is scheduled for release in Spring 2020. The anthology was written by eleven international leadership experts who have proven track records guiding individuals, teams, and organizations through transformative periods and onto greater success. The foreword was written by Jack Canfield, co-founder of the Chicken Soup of the Soul series and author of The Success Principles. To find out more click here.

Congratulations to PPSC faculty members Carina Bissett and Cindy Skaggs, who have been invited to appear at PPLD’s 13th annual Mountain of Authors on Saturday, April 27! This is a free annual community program that provides an opportunity for the public and local authors to network, listen to notable writers, and learn more about the craft of writing and trends in publishing.

Congratulations to PPSC faculty member Amie Sharp, who has been named the winner of the Red Dragonfly Press Emergence Poetry Prize! The press will publish her chapbook, The Sabine Women, in 2019. This chapbook was begun while she was a 2018 artist-in-residence for the Sabina Cultural Association in Casaprota, Italy. Additionally, her poem “Train at Night in the Desert” has been chosen as one of sixteen finalists for the Lascaux Poetry Prize out of over two thousand entries, and will appear in The Lascaux Prize Anthology Vol. 6 in 2019. She has also been named one of the Halcyone’s “Sixty-Four Best Poets of 2018,” with two poems to be published by Halcyone/the Black Mountain Press in The Sixty Four: 2018.

Congratulations to Prof. Brook Bhagat for the publication of her flash fiction piece "The Same Woman (Scarlight)" in Monkey Bicycle! Click here to read!

Carina Bissett's story "Rotten" is included in the Crystal Lake anthology Arterial Bloom, her flash story "Aviatrix Unbound' will appear in the anthology Triangulation: Extinction, and her story "A Seed Planted" will appear in Night Land Quarterly magazine and will be translated into Japanese by Ottojiro Machikane.