Zoe Marie Bel (formerly credited as "Winter Bel") writes literary fiction and poetry.

'After The Angels' is Zoe's first novel; 'Hard Place Rock' her first short story collection; and 'Passengers' her debut poetry collection. These works have together taken the best part of a decade to complete, and will be forthcoming in the next few years.

In the meantime, her poetry slimbook Foothills published in February 2024 and is available in bookstores worldwide. Her debut novella 'Valérie (or: Red Velvet Nothing)' published on December 1st 2024, and is now available wherever books are sold.

Read published writing online

Zoe's short fiction and non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Review, Australian Book Review, Short Edition (once, twice, thrice), Mystery Tribune, and Mays 13, among others. In August 2023, her story 'Black Wax' was shortlisted in the Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize.

Zoe occasionally posts prose, poetry and journalism (as well as the occasional flash-bang of news) to her Journal.

How it began

Zoe was born and raised in Britain in the '80s, then complicated and tanned by America. (A word-in here for France as well, a country that hosted Zoe for three years during the pandemic, with no discernible improvement to her fashion sense. Zoe now adoringly reads and writes the French language but can't really speak it, a conflict that led to much Love Actually flashcard antics in the Ikeas of Paris.)

A graduate of Oxford University and London Film School, Zoe established her first creative arts business in grad school and hasn't had a "real job" ever since. This might explain her ability to survive for extended periods on chick peas and next door's wifi.

Zoe wrote her first novel at age 9. It was a multiracial gangster drama as full of shit as you might expect from a four-foot white chick writing with a Thundercats biro. That was also the age at which Zoe was first published, with her elementary-school poem about a lonely scarecrow printed in the town newspaper between roadwork announcements.

Outside of writing

Zoe is a passionate pianist, runner, cyclist, and photographer. She is running the LA Marathon in March 2025 to raise funds for the ALS Association. Please consider donating! Thank you so much for your support.

Zoe is an advocate for a number of social issues. Paramount among these is homelessness in Los Angeles, and fighting for better judicial outcomes for victims of sexual assault.

In October 2023, Zoe created the Love Is Best campaign, a donations drive for medical aid for Israeli and Palestinian civilians in the Israel-Hamas War. In April 2024, she followed this with the Feed Gaza Now grassroots campaign to demand diplomatic and humanitarian action against imminent famine in Gaza.

Zoe travels a heck of a lot, and will visit Sydney and Tokyo in the near future. But she is never too far from Los Angeles, the city of greatest influence on her as both a writer and a human.

The other identity

Under pen name 'Lex Snowe', Zoe writes thriller fiction and screenplays. You can read more about Lex Snowe projects at LexiaSnowe.com