Helen Degen Cohens (aka Halina Degenfisz) awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, First Prize in British Stand Magazines 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 Magazine and coordinates its adjunct, The Poetry Forum.

She was an Illinois Arts Council Artist-In-Education and taught for Roosevelt University. Twice featured in The Spoon River Poetry Review, and in online magazines such as TheScreamOnline.com (Return to Warsaw, The Edge of the Field, and much poetry), her work is also the subject of scholarly articles such as: Rootlessness and Alienation in the Poetry of Helen Degen Cohen, in Shofar (U. of Nebraska Press) and This Dark PolandEthnicity in the work of Helen Degen Cohen by John Guzlowski, in Something of My Very Own to Say: American Women Writers of Polish Descent (Columbia University Press). She published two books in 2009: Habry (poems related to World War II), and a chapbook, On A Good Day One Discovers Another Poet. The author also served on the editorial board of the new anthology from SUNY, Where We Find Ourselves, which includes another excerpt (Mirka & I) from her autobiographical novel manuscript, The Edge of the Field.