Davina Bell completed a law degree in Western Australia before moving to Melbourne to undertake the Professional Writing and Editing course at RMIT University. In Melbourne, she co-founded the literary quarterly Harvest. In 2007, Bell began work as an editorial assistant at Pearson Education; she later moved to Penguin as a children's book editor. In 2020, she was appointed to the children and young-adult division of Allen & Unwin.
The author of a number of well-received children's and picture books, in 2018, she was shortlisted for the Text Prize for a manuscript about the end of the world.