Inspiration
Russ is a voracious reader, listener of music, and observer of humans. His writing is constantly informed by what he reads, hears, and sees – and in many cases, he is purposeful about what he listens to while he writes to help him evoke the right mood or feeling. A longer list of influences and inspirations related to Falling is in the works, but a few important references include:

Non-fiction:
The Bible
The Bhagavad Gita
The Upanishads
Tao Te Ching
The Perennial Philosophy – Aldous Huxley
Consciousness Speaks – Ramesh Balsekar
I Am That – Sri Nisargadatta
The Power of Now – Eckhart Tolle
The Experience of Insight – Joseph Goldstein

Favorite Writers and influencers:
Henry David Thoreau – Walden
Ernest Hemingway – Sun Also Rises
William Faulkner – Sound and the Fury
Henry James – The Beast in the Jungle
Stephen King – Memoir on the Craft of Writing