Many professors at Southeast Missouri State University have things they do outside of classes. Some are engaged in research. Others are performers. One faculty member in the Department of English is an award-winning author.

Dr. James Brubaker, assistant professor of English at Southeast, has won the Pessgang Prize for his collection of short stories, "Black Magic Death Sphere: (Science) Fictions." The Pressgang Prize is awarded by Pressgang, a publisher affiliated with Butler University. They do not accept submissions from current or former Butler students or faculty.

"This is a book that I have been working on for a long time," Brubaker said.

Brubaker submitted his manuscript to Pressgang on April 21, 2014. Since then, he was hired by Southeast and moved to Cape Girardeau. He was notified by email that his manuscript was among the top five on June 30. The announcement that he had won was made on Aug. 19.

"My phone rang in the middle of New Faculty Orientation and I noticed it was from an Indiana number," Brubaker said. "I had a feeling I knew who it was, so I excused myself to take the call."

Brubaker's book, "Black Magic Death Sphere," is a collection of short stories that explores various science fiction tropes, but he said that it is not straight science fiction. The stories use various traditional plot points such as multiple universes and intergalactic travel, while examining them or using them as metaphors.

"One story focuses on a ship traveling to another galaxy and the crew experiences several temporal and spatial anomalies along the way," Brubaker said. "But then there is a meta-layer added when a fictional rival writer adds his own commentary. Another story uses the theory of alternate universes as a metaphor for phases in a man's life."

In addition to winning the Pressgang Prize, Brubaker has also had two other books published in the past year. The first book is "Pilot Season," which is a collection of scripts for pilot episodes for fictional television shows.

According to Brubaker, the book is somewhere between a collection of short stories and a single on-going story.

"It is kind of a collection of short stories, kind of a coherent piece," Brubaker said.

The other book is "Liner Notes," a collection of short stories about music. It won the Subito Press Book Prize in 2013 and was just recently released.

The book's title refers to the production notes for albums that are included with them. Each story in the book revolves around a different artist, either real or fictional, such as Flava Flav and Brian Wilson.

"I had been writing this book while working on my Ph.D.," Brubaker said. "I was looking for ways to write about music while I was at school and the book essentially became my dissertation."

The Pressgang Prize included a cash prize of $1,500, publication of the book by Pressgang and the chance to read the book at Butler when it is published. "Black Magic Death Sphere" will be published in November 2015.

"When that happens, I will probably only read one or two stories," Brubaker said. "I heard the previous event had a dinner and the winning author gave out signed copies of his book, but I'm not sure what will happen for me."