Allison Field Bell
Poetry Judge | Grand Opening Contest

Allison Field Bell is a multi-genre writer originally from northern California, but currently living in Salt Lake City, Utah. She received her MFA in Fiction from New Mexico State University in 2017, and she is a PhD Candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Utah. She is a Fiction Editor for The Rumpus and Waxwing Literary Journal. Allison is a 2024 Anthony Veasna So Scholar for Adroit Journal and a 2024 residency winner for the Writing by Writers Santa Fe Residency. She is also a recipient of the 2023-2024 and the 2024-2025 Steffenson Cannon Graduate Fellowship at the University of Utah.

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Allison’s flash piece, “Carve,” was awarded 3rd Prize in the 2023 Bridport Prize for Flash Fiction and is forthcoming in Best Small Fictions 2024; her story, “A Story You Know,” won Midway Journal’s 2023 ~1000 Below: Flash Prose and Poetry Contest, judged by Jennifer Tseng and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2023; her micro, “Tangerine,” which appears in Ghost Parachute, is also forthcoming in Best Microfiction 2024, and was nominated for Best of the Net 2024, Best Small Fictions 2024, and a Pushcart Prize in 2023; her story, “Declawed,” which appears in Flash Frog and her essay, “Rectangle,” which appears in Post Road were both nominated for Pushcart Prizes in 2023; her micro essay, “Girls Are Always” won Quarter After Eight’s 2021 Robert J. DeMott Short Prose Contest, judged by David Haynes; her story, “Of the Eating Variety,” which appeared in Ruminate, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2021; and her essay, “The Body, The Onion: A Balagan,” which appears in Shenandoah, was a notable essay in The Best American Essays 2021.

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Allison’s collection-in-progress, Bodies of Other Women, was a runner-up for the 2024 Iron Horse / TTU Press First Book Prize and a finalist for The Journal’s 2023 Non/Fiction Collection Prize, the Black Lawrence Press 2022 St. Lawrence Book Award, and the Texas Review Press 2022 George Garrett Fiction Prize. Allison’s hybrid chapbook-in-progress, A is For, was a finalist for the 2023 NMP / DIAGRAM Chapbook Contest, and her flash fiction chapbook, Love Each Other More, was a finalist for the Iron Horse Literary Review 2024 Chapbook Competition.

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Allison’s current projects-in-progress include a book of fiction, Bodies of Other Women, a collection of flash nonfiction, Harlan: A Letter in Essays, and a collection of poetry, Some Other Body. She is also at work on a new novel. Allison's prose appears or is forthcoming in SmokeLong Quarterly, DIAGRAM, The Gettysburg Review, The Adroit Journal, West Branch, and elsewhere. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in The Cincinnati Review, Passages North, RHINO Poetry, The Greensboro Review, Nimrod International Journal, and elsewhere. VISIT ALLISON'S WEBSITE