Advisory Board profile

Francesca Bell is an accomplished poet, translator, and editor. Deeply active in the poetry world for more than 20 years, she is the Marin County Poet Laureate for 2023-2026, Events Coordinator for the Marin Poetry Center, and Arts Program Coordinator for the Friends of the San Quentin Prison Library. Formerly, she was poetry editor of River Styx. Her first book, Bright Stain (Red Hen Press, 2019), was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, the Julie Suk Award, and the American Fiction Poetry Award. What Small Sound (Red Hen Press, 2023), was a finalist for the Julie Suk Award, shortlisted for the Eric Hoffer Award Grand Prize, was a finalist for the da Vinci Eye Award, and received an honorable mention in the Eric Hoffer Award Poetry Category. Her writing appears in many magazines including B O D Y, ELLE, Los Angeles Review of Books, New Ohio Review, North American Review, and Rattle, and her poetry has been translated into Italian and Hungarian. 

 

Francesca is a translation editor for the Los Angeles Review, and her other translations appear in Mid-American Review, The Massachusetts Review, New England Review, River Styx, and Waxwing. Whoever Drowned Here, a collection of poems by Max Sessner that she translated from German, was published by Red Hen in 2023 and was nominated for a Northern California Book Award. 

 

Bell first turned to poetry as a young person to process pain and isolation as she grappled with family alcoholism, financial instability, mental illness, her mother's hearing impairment, and frequent relocation. With limited access to formal education, Bell is largely self-taught. Multiple members of her family have been incarcerated, in state and federal facilities, and Bell was the main supporter of her cousin during his 16-year sentence for murder and after his release. She volunteers at the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center teaching needlework, leading poetry workshops, and organizing and facilitating author visits. Bell believes that reading and writing poetry can empower people to gain access to their feelings, achieve greater insight into their own lives, learn deeper empathy for others, and heal. She hopes to make a difference to those touched by incarceration as she and her family have been.