Martine Bellen

Commercial Fiction, Women’s Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Young Adult, Poetry, Creative Nonfiction, (Education Specialist)

Developmental Editor, Manuscript Critique, Manuscript Editor, Work-in-Progress Reader, Line Editor

Martine Bellen, a poet—whose ear guides her when line editing—began her editing career over thirty years ago at Conjunctions, a literary journal on whose masthead she remains. She was the co-editor, with Bradford Morrow and Lee Smith, of issue 28, “Tributes,” comprised of personal essays in which authors that include playwright Ntozake Shange; film director and screenwriter John Sayles; poet Robert Creeley; and master of terror and the supernatural Peter Straub pay homage to a writer they hold in high esteem. From there, Bellen’s book editing work extended to editorial positions at the houses Henry Holt and Company and Carroll & Graf Publishers; authors whose books she aquired included Denise Mina (now published by Little Brown), Amanda Filipacchi (now published by Norton), and Can Xue, who has been longlisted for the Booker Prize and is a Nobel Prize for Literature favorite.

An independent editor for twenty years, Bellen worked with a vast array of clients, from first-time writers to those who are seasoned and published at major commercial houses. For authors starting out, Bellen has been a creative writing teacher at highly regarded colleges and universities—the New School (New York City), Hunter College (New York City), and Wesleyan University (Middletown, Connecticut), to name a few—and, therefore, has experience in articulating how to perform the craft moves needed to develop a novel. Bellen believes her job as an editor is to assist in manifesting the author’s vision. To quote the acclaimed editor Robert Gottlieb, “Editing requires you to be always open, always responding. It is very important, for example, not to allow yourself to want the writer to write a certain kind of book.” Bellen will help you craft and realize your unique work.