Dr. Allison Field Bell
Allison Field Bell (she/her) 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 (she/her) 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 (she/her) 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.
Ani King (they/them) is a queer, gender non-compliant writer and artist from Michigan. Most recently, Ani is a Monarch Queer Literary Award recipient, with work on the Wigleaf Top 50 Long List, in Best Small Fictions 2025, and in Best Microfiction 2026. Ani’s first full length flash collection, Family Night, is available from Mason Jar Press in October 2026.
Headshot ALT text: Picture of a white person smiling, with short, brown and grey hair, large-framed tortoiseshell glasses like their dad probably wore in the 1980s, and a medusa piercing. The photo has been edited to wash the picture out and the subject has a beam of pale blue light cutting across their eyes like a laser. This person's kids definitely think they are very cool and up on current trends. This person's cats respect them completely.
Ani King
Jamie L. Smith
Jamie L. Smith (she/her) holds a PhD in English Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Utah, and an MFA in Creative Writing from CUNY Hunter College. She is the author of the poetry collection The Flightless Years and Trojan Horses: Voices from the Opioid Crisis, winner of the 2025 Unleash Press Book Prize. Her chapbook Mythology Lessons, a notable mention in Best American Essays 2021, was winner of Tusculum Review's 2020 Nonfiction Prize. Her chapbook Gargoyle Vigil, winner of the Rick Campbell Editors' Choice Award, is forthcoming from Anhinga Press. Her work has been published in Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, Southern Humanities Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Best New Poets, The Good Life Review, and elsewhere.