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What is your favorite place in theworld? The mountains of western North Carolina.What do you like about it?The beauty and the wildness.BM: What place does nature occupy inyour writing?RR: It plays a major role. As humans we are part of nature and it ispart of us. That is a reality, though too often we humans wish to deny it.BM: Do animals play a great role inyour writing?RR: They do.&#160; I’ve always beeninterested in animals, especially reptiles and raptors.&#160; I’m particularly fascinated with animals thatare near extinction or recently extinct. BM: How about plants, minerals, andelements? RR: Yes, to be true to the world where my work is set, I must show myreaders all aspects of that world as vividly as possible, whether animal, plant,rock, even the composition of the soil.BM: To what extent are yourcharacters related to the environments you create for them? RR: My characters and their landscapes are inextricable.&#160; At times, as in The Cove, landscapeand human destiny are one. I am fascinated with how the landscape a personlives in affects him or her psychologically.BM: To what degree might your writingbe based on a scientific understanding of the world? I am very interested in understanding the natural world from ascientific point of view.&#160; I do a lot ofresearch about the region I write about, sometimes flora, sometimesgeology.&#160; I want to know, and I want myreader to know, as much as possible about the place. BM: Do various myths and mythologies informyour writing or inspire you? (Could you quote a couple of examples?)Yes. I am fascinated with myths, both Eastern and Western. But most ofall I am influenced by Carl Jung’s concept of the “collective unconscious,”those archetypes that transcend particular cultures to become universal. JosephCampbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces&#160; is a book I’ve found especially valuable inthis regard.BM: Do other fields from arts andhumanities have any impact on the vision of the world you try to (re)create inyour writing? (Could you quote a couple of examples?)RR: Definitely. My father was an art teacher so I have always had a loveof painting. My middle name is Vincent, after Van Gogh, so I have been impactedby his work, especially in Above the Waterfall. In that novel I wantedBecky to see the natural world with an intensity similar to Van Gogh’s. EdwardHopper and Rembrandt are two other artists I particularly admire. Music hasbeen important to me as well and has been valuable in helping me be aware ofthe possibilities of sound in my poetry and prose.BM: Which writers, if any, mighthave been the most influential on your writing? RR: There are so many. A few are Dostoyevsky, O’Connor, Faulkner, Giono,Hardy, Shakespeare, Keats.BM: How powerful do you finddystopic fiction, whether literature or cinema? RR: It’s not my favorite genre, but there are writers who do it well.BM: Would you agree with saying thatall nature writers are mystics? RR: I couldn’t say that allnature writers are mystics, but it does seem that most find a sense oftranscendence and wonder in the natural world.&#160;BM: If there is such a thing as whatMark Tredinnick calls “the land’s wild music,” how do you think one can learnto hear it, and, and how might this wild music ripple into and give shape to one’swriting? RR: I believe that an attentiveness to nature allows sensations andknowledge that one cannot acquire elsewhere. I know from experience that when Ihave spent long periods in wild areas that I have an awareness that feelsatavistic. I once avoided a snakebite by knowing a poisonous snake was close byeven though I did not see or hear it.BM: Would you say that there is adirect link between the language of the earth and the creative language in yourwork? RR: Perhaps in the rhythms of streams and seasons. I do know that mostof my metaphors are steeped in the natural world.BM: How much of your writing wouldyou say is about re-enchanting the world? RR: I would say a good portion of my poetry. Above the Waterfallis definitely about the necessity of doing so. For Becky, the world would beunbearable otherwise. Saints at the River also emphasizes the need tore-enchant the world.BM: Do you think humans have losttheir capacity for wonder about the natural world? RR: Technology has made such a loss inevitable. The world inside a glassscreen is not reality, and we ignore the natural world at our peril. I alsobelieve technology makes us less human, though some people may believe that’s apositive. I’d rather be a human connected to the real world than aflesh-encumbered machine.BM: How much ecocritcal theory orenvironmentalist literature do you read? RR: I don’t read much theory but I do read a lot of environmentalliterature, books such as David Abram’s The Spell of the Sensuous and, mostrecently Carl Safinas’ excellent book Beyond Words.BM: Do you believe that literaturecan change the way humans think about our relationship to the natural worldaround and bring about not only awareness, but also political changes? I would like to believe such writing can have an influence. Certainlythere are examples of such, as in the temporary influence of Rachel Carson’s SilentSpring when it came out during the 1950’s.&#160;More recently, Wendell Berry’s work has had some political influence inthe United States. BM: Can you think of a case that you know of where policies may have followed from awareness raised by a great novel, or any other work of art?RR: Silent Spring.BM: Do you think that most peoplereading your work are already cognizant of environmental issues, or do you feellike your writing might bring some of your readers to a different kind of understandingand consciousness?RR: I have readers who are not reading me as an “environmental”novelist. I view my role as an artist to be more a witness than an advocate. Idon’t feel the role of my fiction is to tell my reader what to think. If I wishto do that, I will write a non-fiction piece, as I recently did about thecontaminated ground water in part of Appalachia. Nevertheless, I do bring upenvironmental issues in my fiction, and my hope is that readers willcontemplate such issues... BM: What changes do you hope mightbe brought about from reading your books, on an individual level?RR: In Above the Waterfall, my hope was it might remind thereader of the beauty and mystery of the natural world, especially in an agewhere so much of life is focused on the technology.BM: How does your knowledge and careabout environmental issues and non-human life affect your own life style andchoices?RR: My home in the mountains is rather isolated, which allows me to livesurrounded by forest. I try to be aware of the environmental impact of choicesI make in my life, such as a vehicle or food choice. But I am aware that Ithere is more that I could do, especially in light of the example of someonesuch as Wendell Berry.BM: If you could recommend a fewways to improve one’s lifestyle in a way that could also reduce the negativeimpact of humans’ activities on the planet, which would you suggest?RR: Food choices, vehicle choices, etc. In my region we do yearly riverclean-ups.