Jerri Bell

Jerri Bell retired from the US Navy after twenty years of service that included sea tours on HMS Sheffield and USS Mount Whitney, and shore assignments in Norfolk, Virginia; Lajes, Azores; Washington, DC; and as Assistant Naval Attaché at the US Embassy in Moscow, Russia. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Fairfield University, a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from the Johns Hopkins University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Russian and Soviet Studies from Vassar College. Since 2013, she has served as the Managing Editor for O-Dark-Thirty, the literary journal of the Veterans Writing Project. Her short fiction and nonfiction have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and she and former Marine Tracy Crow are the authors of It’s My Country Too: Women’s Military Stories from the American Revolution to Afghanistan (University of Nebraska Press/Potomac Books, 2017). Her book on the “Golden Fourteen”—the first African American women to serve officially in the US armed forces, is forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press/Potomac Books. She lives with her husband in Maryland.