Russ was born in 1924, which meant he grew up during the Great Depression. As a small child, health problems kept him from participating in active games or sports. Fortunately, he loved books. From the age of six, if there was nothing else available, he'd read the dictionary. As a result, school was easy, and he had no problem maintaining an honor-roll status. Graduation from high school led almost directly into military service.

The army was his choice, he claims, "probably because my father had been in the navy, and I wasn't exactly enthralled by the idea of spending time in a floating target for torpedoes and kamikaze aircraft pilots. Besides, where on a steel deck, can you "dig-in" when the going gets tough?"

During World War II, as a small-arms specialist in the U.S. Army, he participated in the five major battles in Northern Europe, including Normandy and the Ardennes - the Battle of the Bulge. Following World War II, he returned to the printing trade, in which he'd begun to serve an apprenticeship and soon founded his own company, "The Enterprise Press".

In 1951, Russ married Maida Lenore Tillson, and a year later their twins were born. Lorelei currently lives in Cumberland, Rhode Island, where she owns a merchandising firm, and Russell 2nd lives in Webster, New York. Russ and Maida divorced in 1970, and Russ now lives with his wife Bessie in Rehoboth, Massachusetts.

In addition to household and garden activities (Russ has always tended a large vegetable garden), he donates time to a local shelter for large animals, authors a column for the local newspaper, and writes.

Russ has always been interested in writing, and completed Rod Serling's correspondence course for writers in the 1960's. But his writing really began after he attended a writers' colony for two weeks in New Hampshire in 1973. The session was run by Mildred Reid, who had books sold worldwide.

Russ's poetry has been published in several small-press journals and two anthologies, he writes a regular column for a monthly magazine (circulation 5,000) and two of his stories have found a home in a series of text books designed to teach reading to the learning impaired. He has also been a poetry section leader in the Time/Warner authors forum on CompuServe, and is currently working on a novel. See the "Interests" page for examples of Russ's craft.