Virginia Bell offers services as a writer, editor, and teacher. Bell is an accomplished writer, a Senior Editor with RHINO Poetry , and an adjunct professor, workshop leader, and tutor.  She holds a B.S. in Education and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and has taught at the Universities of North Carolina and Maryland, as well as Georgetown University, Loyola University Chicago, DePaul University, and The Chicago High School for the Arts.  

Bell is the author of From the Belly (Sibling Rivalry Press 2012), a book-length collection of poetry, and has published poems and essays in numerous journals and anthologies. Her lyric essay "Chicken" is the winner of the 2020 nonfiction prize from NELLE literary magazine.

​In 2016, she was a finalist for both the Lamar York Prize in Creative Nonfiction and the Center for Women Writers Creative Nonfiction Contest. Originally from Pennsylvania, Bell has lived and traveled in India, Pakistan, Spain, and Mexico.  She now lives in the Chicago area with her family. 

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