Helen Degen Cohen

Helen Degen Cohen’s (aka Halina Degenfisz's) awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, First Prize in British Stand Magazine's International fiction competition, three Illinois Arts Council awards, an IAC Fellowship, an Indiana Writers Conference Award, and fellowships to the major art colonies. She co-founded and co-edits RHINO and coordinates its adjunct, The Poetry Forum. She has taught as an IAC Artist-In-Education through the Illinois Arts Council and as an instructor for Roosevelt University. Twice featured in The Spoon River Poetry Review, and in online zines such as TheScreamOnline.com., her work is the subject of articles such as “Rootlessness and Alienation in the Poetry of Helen Degen Cohen,” in Shofar (U. of Nebraska Press) and "This Dark Poland--Ethnicity in the work of Helen Degen Cohen" in Something of My Very Own to Say: American Women Writers of Polish Descen (Columbia University Press). She published two collections in 2009: HABRY (Puddin'Head Press & Amazon),and ON A GOOD DAY ONE DISCOVERS ANOTHER POET (Amazon) Helen served on the editorial board of the new anthology from SUNY, WHERE WE FIND OURSELVES, which includes “Mirka & I”, another excerpt from her autobiographical novel THE EDGE OF THE FIELD. NERUDA NIGHTS is available from Finishing Line Press and Amazon.com. A 2014 semifinalist in Leapfrog's Fiction book competition, one story is up at Tupelo Q,another at Nimrod's Awards Issue as Finalist for hte Katherine Anne Porter award.