Brook Bhagat
Brook Bhagat is the author of Only Flying, a Pushcart-nominated collection of surreal poetry and flash fiction on paradox, rebellion, transformation, and enlightenment from Unsolicited Press. Her work has won contests at Loud Coffee Press and A Story in 100 Words, and it has appeared in Monkeybicycle, Empty Mirror, Soundings East, The Alien Buddha Goes Pop, Anthem: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, and other journals and anthologies. She and her husband Gaurav created Blue Planet Journal, which she edits and writes for. She is an assistant professor of English and creative writing at Pikes Peak State College and the founder and facilitator of The Nearby Universe. Learn more at https://brook-bhagat.com/ and follow her on Instagram and Twitter @BrookBhagat.
Candace R. Craig
Candace R. Craig grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, an underdog city that is the nation’s “armpit” to some, but fertile soil for her. It was there that she gathered enough memorable experiences to fuel creative writing projects for the next few decades. She is currently working as a free-lance editor, private humanities teacher, and writing instructor at Pikes Peak State College. She has compiled a series of classroom literature guides and published her creative nonfiction in such journals as The Hopper and US Represented. She recently published a co-authored monograph on the films of David Lynch with Lexington Press. You can follow her at candace-r-craig.com and on Amazon.
ReeAnn Hyde
ReeAnn Hyde is an academic advisor in the PPSC Advising & Testing Department. Under the pen name M.R. Hyde, she writes and is an active artist. She pens fiction and poetry for the sheer joy of words, and most of her work celebrates and explores the known and spiritual world for Christian religious purposes. Largely self-published, she has also produced two audiobooks. See more at http://hydewords.blogspot.com/.and http://thewordwwtw.blogspot.com/. She has had multiple art shows at the Cottonwood Center for the Arts and Pikes Peak Library District. See her online gallery at Redbubble.
Lisa Macedo
Lisa Macedo is a writer and instructor in Monument, Colorado. She earned her MFA in Fiction from George Mason University and writes literary fiction and narrative nonfiction. Her essay “El Otro Lado” won the Alan Cheuse Nonfiction Award, and her narrative essay “Juice for Faith” won the Mary Roberts Rinehart H.M. Award. In the realm of fiction, she likes to explore literary devices like nonlinear timelines and shifting POV. She is currently working on two novels and teaches writing at PPSC.
Amie Sharp
Amie Sharp is a past co-chair of the Pikes Peak State College English Department and is the author of The Sabine Women, awarded the Emergence Chapbook Prize from Red Dragonfly Press. Her writing has appeared in numerous literary journals including Badlands, the Bellevue Literary Review, BlazeVOX, Burningword Literary Journal, and The Lascaux Review. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and twice for Best of the Net. Her new poetry collection is Formations of the West from Main Street Rag Press.
Sage Schneider
Sage Schneider Sage Schneider is part of the Communication faculty at Pikes Peak State College. As a recent resident of Colorado, Sage spends her time discovering new hiking trails and checking out too many books from the library. She writes and reads fantasy and scifi, with a passion for stories that explore the ordinary lives of extraordinary creatures.
Jackal Tanelorn
Jackal Tanelorn has been a vagabond his entire life. Growing up in L.A., moving to Toronto, then Vancouver, Canada then Seattle and finally Miami, he ended up in Mexico City for ten years before moving to Colorado Springs in Feb. 2024. He works at PPSC in the Promise Scholarship Program and is the advisor for two student clubs: Armonía Hispana and Spectrum. He is pursuing his PhD in Educational Leadership, Research and Policy at UCCS. He has a podcast called Stealth: A Transmasculine Podcast and is attempting to write a fantasy novel.
Richard Trussell
Richard Trussell was the PPSC philosophy chair for many years. He is a published essayist on political issues, the holocaust, white water river running, sci-fi films, and animal rights. Nearby Universe Members are now coaching him in writing a memoir, on which he views himself as an eager but slow learner.
Jennifer Valk
Jennifer Valk holds a master’s degree in creative writing and teaches English at PPSC. She likes to immerse herself in high-fantasy and action-based magical worlds. She is currently writing her own fantasy novel about a sheltered princess thrown into a world of chaos and strife.
Madeline van Batum
Madeline van Batum is an English and writing tutor at PPSC and is working towards her MFA in creative writing from Southern New Hampshire University. She has microfiction published on A Story in 100 Words. She grew up in Colorado Springs away from her large family located in the Netherlands. In addition to writing speculative fiction, she enjoys being in the kitchen, reading, and needle felting. When she is not doing any of that, she is relocating bugs with cups and napkins.
The Nearby Universe 