SOURCE: Bass, Rick, and Bonnie Lyons and Bill Oliver. “Out of Boundaries.” In Passion and Craft: Conversations with Notable Writers, edited by Bonnie Lyons and Bill Oliver, pp. 72-84. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1998.

In the following interview, Bass recounts his literary influences, major themes in his fiction, and his first volume of short stories.

A committed environmental activist, essayist, and fiction writer, Rick Bass has two reading audiences. To those primarily concerned with the natural world and the preservation of natural resources, Bass is the prolific, persuasive author of seven highly regarded nonfiction books: The Deer Pasture (1985), Wild to the Heart (1987), Oil Notes (1989), Winter: Notes from Montana (1991), The Ninemile Wolves (1992), The Lost Grizzlies: A Search for Survivors in the Wilderness of Colorado (1995), and The Book of Yaak (1997). For readers of fiction, he is most importantly the author of The Watch (1989), Platte River (1994), In the Loyal Mountains: Stories...