Virginia Bell is the author of From the Belly (Sibling Rivalry Press), a book-length collection of poetry, and has published poems, essays, and reviews in numerous journals and anthologies. Her lyric essay "Chicken" is the winner of the 2020 Nonfiction Prize from NELLE literary magazine.  Her poem "I Walk Into Every Room and Look for My Mother" won Honorable Mention in the 2019 riverSedge Poetry Prize, judged by José Antonio Rodríguez.

Bell's essay "Fish," an excerpt from her manuscript Let the Hounds Give Tongue: Essays on the Ten Years I Knew My Father, won the 2021 Chapter One Competition from Meet Me @ 19th Street, sponsored by Arch Street Press!  Read "Fish" here!
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Bell offers services as a writer, editor, and teacher. She is an accomplished writer, a Co-Editor of RHINO Poetry, along with Jan Bottiglieri and Angela Narciso Torres, 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. 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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