Russell Martin, born in 1952 in Colorado, is an American writer. A reporter and then managing editor of the Telluride Times (1975-1979), he has written full time since 1979. His work includes nonfiction narratives, among them A Story That Stands Like a Dam (1990), on the Glen Canyon Dam, and the bestseller Beethoven's Hair, as well as the novels The Sorrow of Archaeology and Beautiful Islands. He has taught English at Colorado College. With astronaut Joseph P. Allen he co-wrote the text of Entering Space: An Astronaut's Odyssey (1984), published in French as Aller-retour pour l'espace.