Anna Lena Phillips Bell is the author of Might Could, winner of the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize, forthcoming March 2026 from Waywiser Books. She is also the author of Ornament, winner of the Vassar Miller Poetry Prize, and the chapbook Smaller Songs, from St Brigid Press. Her work appears in journals including the Southern Review, Orion, Electric Literature, Evergreen Review, and 32 Poems. The recipient of a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship in literature and the Winter Anthology Award, she has served since 2013 as the editor of Ecotone. She is an associate professor in the creative writing department at UNC Wilmington, and calls ungendered Appalachian square dances in what’s now called North Carolina and beyond.
