A Village Voice writer once called Russell Banks "the most important living white male American on the official literary map." Flattering, but as Banks sees it, a bit off the mark.Discuss.
"As a writer I don't have a nationality," he says. "As a writer I don't have a race. As a writer I don't have a gender."
...When I visit the 67-year-old writer on a recent fall afternoon in his home in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, he is wearing jeans, a flannel shirt and a fleece vest. With his close-cropped gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard, he looks every bit the white American male. But he resists thinking of himself that way, he says, because "then I would only be able to write about living, white American men and I would rather not limit myself that way."
This week's PW also includes a Q&A with Ben Peek. My goal is to do at least one SF/F/H-related Q&A, profile, or signature review per month, so keep an eye out! And we have reviews of the following: Tangled Webs: A Black Jewels Novel by Anne Bishop (starred), In the Courts of the Crimson Kings by S.M. Stirling, Waking Brigid by Francis Clark, Victory Conditions by Elizabeth Moon, and Got to Kill them All by Dennis Etchison.
