Russell Martin

Russell Martin directed, wrote, and produced the documentary film Beautiful Faces, filmed in Mexico City, which premiered in 2012 and won numerous film festival awards. He produced and co-wrote the award-winning documentary film Two Spirits, which was broadcast during the 2010-2011 season of the PBS series Independent Lens and received the Audience Award. He is the award-winning, internationally published author of two critically acclaimed novels, The Sorrow of Archaeology and Beautiful Islands, as well as many nonfiction books. He has written for Time, the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, and National Public Radio. His nonfiction book Beethoven's Hair, a United States bestseller and a Washington Post Book of the Year, has been published in twenty-one translated editions and is the subject of a Gemini-award-winning film of the same name. His books have been optioned by Robert Redford's Wildwood Enterprises, the Denver Center Theatre Company, Mike Jacobs, Jr. Productions, and New World Television. He is, says Kirkus Reviews, "first and foremost a masterful storyteller." When he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Colorado College in 1995, the citation read, in part, "Mr. Martin offers to general audiences precise and accurate, but highly readable, studies of extraordinarily complex issues. He does more: he sees beyond what is already known; he moves beyond synthesis to new insights. His work is disciplined, analytical, and creative. It is also profoundly humane."