About

Pen Forward is the freelance copywriting and content creation service started by actor & writer Vanessa Bellew.

A creative writer and performer by passion, Vanessa fell into copywriting — repeatedly — without even realizing it. Though she’s been writing fiction, articles, plays, and essays for fun most of her life now, she didn’t get her first taste of copywriting until she was a teaching assistant for one of the top acting coaches in the business. To be helpful, she volunteered to jazz up the monthly newsletter and social media posts to encourage more audience engagement. The result was a pun-filled, culturally topical opus that current and potential clients loved. The audience looked forward to each month’s post, commenting and reaching out to the acting studio to praise the tongue-in-cheek announcements.

Having gained a reputation as the go-to-gal for writing help among her fellow artists, Vanessa honed her skills on her friends’ cover letters, artist biographies, and website copy…but this was mostly volunteer.

It wasn’t until several years later that Vanessa started copywriting in a truly professional capacity. Hired as an administrative assistant to a New York City luxury real estate team at Compass, it wasn’t long at all before she was given sole charge over all listing descriptions, marketing materials, taglines, agent bios, newsletters…anything and everything to help the team and their clients shine.

When one of the team members left to start her own company, it was Vanessa she called on to write everything a high-profile startup could need, from carefully crafting a hip and modern style of website copy to tailoring statements for articles in The New York Times and Hamptons Magazine to building the foundation for their first ad campaign. She even did some speechwriting!

Now, after a decade of being an exclusive in-house copywriter across multiple industries, Vanessa is offering her freelance services to you!