About Bella

DR. BELLA ELLWOOD-CLAYTON writes twisty psychological suspense about the secrets we hide from those closest to us—the lies we tell our partners, friends, and ourselves.

Her understanding of intimate betrayal isn’t just instinct. With a PhD examining women’s sexuality and relationships, she spent years researching the messy realities of desire, deception, and the gap between what people say and what they do. That expertise informs every marriage under strain, every friendship hiding cracks, every character convinced they can keep their secret buried.

Her novels include Weekend Friends (Post Hill Press 2023), hailed as “unputdownable” by bestselling author Nicola Moriarty, The Swimming Group (Joffe Books 2025), and The Cherry Wives (March 2026). She’s represented by Jill Marsal of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency, one of the top literary agents in the US.

Born on Valentine’s Day in Melbourne to avant-garde composer and playwright  Syd Clayton and enlightenment-seeker Gwenda Ellwood, Bella’s childhood was split between Melbourne and Vancouver. At nine, heading to hospital after a bad knee accident, she wrote her first poem:

Raindrops on the window meet like lovers after a long separation

During three weeks in hospital, a friend’s mother gifted her a book of poetry and a blank notebook. From that moment, Bella never stopped writing. Journal in hand, she found deeper companionship with the page than almost anything else.

After completing a BA in anthropology at Concordia University in Montréal, Bella travelled to Indonesia’s Mentawai Islands with National Geographic to explore tattoo culture. Her first short story was published during this period, along with poetry in various journals. Offered a PhD scholarship, she conducted ethnographic research in the Philippines on young women’s sexual and reproductive health. As the texting capital of the world, her fieldwork evolved into expertise on mobile phones and intimate relationships—the ways technology mediates desire, secrecy, and connection.

But academia felt too constrained. She wanted to take her knowledge about sexuality and relationships to the mainstream.

Back in Australia, Bella wrote a weekly sex and relationship column for mX newspaper, then became a columnist for Sunday Life Magazine in The Age and Sydney Sun-Herald. She wrote for The Huffington Post and her non-fiction book Sex Drive: In Pursuit of Female Desire was published by Allen & Unwin. She appeared regularly on Triple M, The Project and Sunrise and gave many talks about relationships, including a TEDx talk.

Then everything shifted. At a Fitzroy bar, she met an Adelaide-born management consultant. After an intense conversation, she told her friends the next morning, “I’ve met the man I’m going to marry.” Thirteen months later, wearing her grandmother’s wartime wedding dress, she said, “I do.”

Marriage, motherhood, and the daily intimacies of long-term partnership revealed what her academic research hinted at: the most compelling stories live in the space between what we show the world and what we hide. Over the next fifteen years, Bella turned her focus to fiction—writing it, editing it, coaching others. She serves as Head of Editorial at NAC Literary Agency and runs Dr. Bella Editorial, working with emerging and bestselling authors to bring their stories to life.

Married to a real-life superhero, Bella lives in Melbourne with two screen-obsessed teens and a mini Maltese convinced he’s a pit bull. She’s currently promoting The Cherry Wives🍒while brainstorming her next novel.

Excerpt from Karen King’s ‘Friday Talk’ blog:

Welcome to my blog, Bella. What time of the day do you write best?

Morning – preferably when it’s still dark. (No laundry, no phone calls, no kids.) The outer world is silent. My inner world is wild.

What do you like writing most?

I’m fond of writing a sex scene or a comedic moment—and sometimes combining the two. I also love foreshadowing. And dropping clues and red herrings into the story so only later readers are like, “You tricked me!”

Are you a pantster or a plotter?

Plotter. My novels usually have massive twists and often multiple POVs (points of view). It can be messy without a plan. 

What advice would you give to other writers?

Writing is addictive, almost guaranteed to lead to misery, and probably make you broke. Only commit to writing if you can’t stop yourself from doing it. Compulsion can lead to bliss.