Dr. Allison Field Bell
Allison Field Bell is the owner and lead instructor of Field Works Writing. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing and English Literature from the University of Utah and an MFA in Creative Writing from New Mexico State University. She has taught in higher education settings since 2013, and she has published widely across genres. She has two full-length collections: Bodies of Other Women (fiction, Red Hen Press, forthcoming) and All That Blue (poetry, Finishing Line Press, 2026). She also has three chapbooks: Stitch (flash fiction, Chestnut Review Chapbooks, forthcoming), Edge of the Sea (nonfiction, CutBank Books, 2025) and Without Woman or Body (poetry, Finishing Line Press, 2025). Allison is also a photographer. Her photographs can be found across this website.
Allison’s Teaching Philosophy
I didn’t know how much I loved teaching until I had my own class of undergraduates at New Mexico State University in 2014. As is often the case with me, I sunk my teeth in and wouldn’t let go.
I studied creative writing at the graduate level for 10 years. 10 years! That’s a lot of content. But I learned just as much outside the classroom, working as a bartender, organizing for a nonprofit, living in places I didn’t belong. I value education in all of its iterations.
Teaching is ultimately not about knowledge. This is a big radical thing to say for someone who devoted the better part of her adulthood to higher education.
Teaching is about learning.
Here are some things that I know to be true of learning:
Learning happens when we pay attention but it happens when we aren’t paying attention also. Sometimes we learn without knowing we learn. Reading is a great example of this. Reading is our best, cheapest writing teacher.
Learning isn’t linear and it isn’t outcome-driven.
Learning is active and reciprocal.
Learning is a collective activity.
Learning is first and foremost a radical expression of love.
I am grateful to have the ability to offer you all this: what I’ve learned as a writer throughout the years. How I’ve learned it. I hope it all can be of service to you.
Other Instructors
Field Works is a deeply collaborative organization, and we believe in working together to bring you the best possible content. Below are some of the writers who are part of the Field Works journey.
Jasmine Khaliq
Jasmine Khaliq is the author of Somewhere Horses, winner of the Barrow Street Press Editors’ Prize, forthcoming April 2027. Her poetry is found in Best New Poets 2023, Poetry Northwest, 32 Poems, Passages North, Poet Lore, The Rumpus, Bennington Review, and elsewhere. She holds a BA from San Francisco State University and an MFA from the University of Washington, Seattle. Currently, Jasmine is a Ph.D. Candidate in English and Creative Writing at the University of Utah.
Dana Diehl
Dana Diehl is the author of The Earth Room (Black Lawrence Press, 2026), Our Dreams Might Align (Splice UK, 2018) and the collaborative collection, The Classroom (Gold Wake Press, 2019). Her chapbook,TV Girls, won the 2017-2018 New Delta Review Chapbook Contest judged by Chen Chen. Diehl earned her MFA in Fiction at Arizona State University. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming in North American Review, Necessary Fiction, Mid-American Review, and elsewhere. She is an educator in Tucson.