Featured Artist

James Barilla
Department of English

Fly fishing one’s way across America sounds to many people like a fantasy vacation.  For Jim Barilla, it led to the publication of an acclaimed work of creative nonfiction.  In West With the Rise (University of Virginia Press, 2006), Barilla uses his experience as a fly fisherman to explore, and raise ethical questions about, the boundaries between nature and culture.  That’s a recurring interest for Barilla, who, in addition to being an accomplished creative writer, holds an MS in Environmental Studies and a Ph.D. in English, and whose academic scholarship on environmental issues in literature has much in common with his creative writing.

Here Barilla answers our questions about his work, his artistic philosophy, and what he thinks of the arts community at Carolina so far.

1. What excites you most about your most recent work? 

I think you always hope that the pieces of the puzzle in your mind fall together at some point on the page. Occasionally, I catch glimpses of this state of affairs, and those are exhilarating. Eventually, you hope that satisfaction translates into relevance for other people.

2. What do you find most appealing about the arts community at Carolina?

The community is small enough that one can interact with artists in different genres and mediums, yet large enough for diverse and interesting work – I’m involved in a proposal at the moment that would combine poetry, nonfiction, painting and film, for example.

3. What artist in your field, living or dead, do you admire most, and why?

It’s hard to pick just one! I like a lot of the work that’s happening with food and the environment right now. People like Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver are bringing the idea of eating locally into a narrative context, which I admire.

4. If you had a million dollars to give away, what would you do with it?

I would probably found some kind of network of writing residencies in small towns, areas that don’t have much of an arts presence currently. I’d like to see something of that kind available in all fifty states, and not just in conventionally idyllic places.

5. What kind of place do you think art has—or should have—in the larger global community?  And how does what you do in the classroom connect to the larger world?

Well, there’s a lot of work to be done in the era of global warming, and someone has to figure out how to tell that story as something other than a disaster narrative. I think a well-crafted narrative can change the dynamics of how the world operates, but it has to be alert to complexity. I try to communicate the complexity of environmental issues in the classes I teach on the literature of the environment.

6. What’s the last book you read, and what did you think of it?

I’m having trouble finishing books right now – I have a number of them sitting around with bookmarks. The book I’m waiting to get to read is The World Without Us, by Alan Wiseman. He’s writing about what would happen to the globe if humans suddenly disappeared. I’ve heard a lot about it, but haven’t gotten my hands on it yet.

7. Tell us about your work in progress—what can we expect from you next?

   I’m working on a novel at the moment that is about the meeting of the American frontier narrative and globalization, kind of a story of the New West. And I’m working on a nonfiction book about ecological restoration and the return of people to the places they call home. I’ve been working on a chapter about post-Katrina landscape recently.