Betty Louise is a scholar and fiction writer of Cherokee ancestry. Bell is director of the Native American Studies Program and assistant professor of American culture, English, and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her areas of scholary interest include Native American literature, Women's Studies, nineteenth-century American literature, and creative writing. She earned her PhD in 1985 from Ohio State University. Her first novel Faces in the Moon was published in 1994 and received favorable reviews. In addition, Bell has published critical articles on Native American Literature that emphasize the political and personal aspects of Native American identity.