Russell Banks is a novelist known for his portrayals of the interior lives of characters at odds with economic and social forces. Banks was educated at Colgate University in New York and the University of North Carolina. From 1966 he was associated with Lillabulero Press, initially as editor and publisher. The press issued his first book of poems, Waiting to Freeze, in 1969. Other early works included the poetry collection Snow: Meditations of a Cautious Man in Winter (1974); Banks’s first novel, Family Life (1975); and a collection of stories entitled The New World (1978). Banks died at the age of eighty-two on January 7, 2023. (Bio via Britannica.com)