New Books Network: Caitlin Galway on “A Song for Wildcats: Stories” (Dundurn Press, 2025)

Host: Holly Gattery
Guest: Caitlin Galway
Date: December 8, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode of the New Books Network, host Holly Gattery interviews Caitlin Galway about her latest collection, A Song for Wildcats. Comprising five long-form stories, Galway’s book explores trauma, resilience, heartache, and the uncanny, set against varied backdrops—ranging from post-war Australia to the Troubles in Ireland and the 1968 French student revolts. The discussion delves into Galway’s organic, feeling-driven writing process and the themes and stylistic choices that unite her diverse narratives.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Origins and Structure of the Collection

• Organic Beginnings: Galway shares that the collection began unintentionally, with stories emerging from personal obsessions and unresolved wounds.
  • “It wasn't a decision to write a collection...these ideas for other stories start to pop up. And so the next thing I knew, I was writing three different stories...they share my wounds and my obsessions in a way that felt very natural.” (03:21)
• Connective Tissue: Despite varied settings and characters, the stories are unified by Galway’s personal experiences and thematic fixations—particularly on grief, healing, and philosophy.

Order and Development of Stories

• The first story written was “The Lyrebird Spell”, though it was developed over a longer period and repeatedly revised.
• “The Wisp” was the first story completed in full:
  • “The Wisp was the first story that was finished, beginning to end, the first complete story...They were all sort of written at the same time and at different times.” (05:54)
• COVID allowed for slow organic growth, influencing the stories and how Galway returned to each with new insights.

Story Excerpts and Literary Style

The Wisp:

• Set in 1933 in Sleepy Hollow (formerly North Tarrytown), it follows Tessa, a young woman haunted by the loss of her childhood friend, Sabrina, and grappling with queerness and grief.
• “Ultimately, it is about grief and the inability to make sense of grief, to find any kind of logic and then just move past it.” (10:33)
• Dark Whimsy: Galway and Gattery discuss the work’s balance of enchantment and darkness, aligning it with a style Gattery calls “dark whimsy.” Galway notes:
  • “People who have maybe faced a great deal of darkness are some of the most enchanted people. Maybe that is part of the response to it—to face the darkness and then go out into the world and see the beauty.” (12:44)

Movement in Time and Place

• Galway confirms the wide-ranging timelines and geographical settings were not planned, but instinctively followed where each story needed to go.
• Example: "The Islanders"
  • Emerged from the sensation of “violence as environment” during the Troubles in Ireland, with the conflict becoming nearly atmospheric rather than tied to a specific antagonist.
  • “It became what could only be the 1960s and the 1970s in Ireland because of the Troubles. And that’s when I knew...the air is just, you know, on fire with violence and they can’t escape it.” (14:38)

Galway's Writing Style: Feeling-Driven Prose

• Gattery describes Galway’s prose as “feeling-driven,” rather than plot- or character-driven, with a poetic, lyrical, and at times fragmented narration:

  • “It felt so feeling driven. And I think part of that is this really poetic and lyrical language that you have…some stories are plot driven, some stories are character driven...I would call it feeling driven.” (20:22)

• Galway responds:

  • “Even if it’s lyrical, even if it’s poetic...I want the language to be necessary. So even if it’s poetic, even if it’s lyrical, it’s not unnecessary. And I know that with lyrical writing...this is the point though—how this character is feeling. I’m not going to tell you how they feel, I’m going to create the feeling.” (23:54)

• Galway distinguishes writing about what pain or grief “feels like” versus what it “looks like,” noting:

  • “A person who is suffering from grief isn’t thinking about how they look in their grief...they’re in a sort of strange, almost otherworldly place that doesn’t feel quite real...really, really tremendous, enormous pain and enormous grief doesn’t feel like this planet. It feels like another world.” (25:02)

Notable Reading: "A Song for Wildcats"

• [27:23] Galway reads an excerpt from the title story, set in 1968 Corsica during the French student revolts.
• The excerpt captures the tender aftermath of an intimate night between two young men, Alfie and Felix, using keen sensory detail and emotional nuance:
  • “An aching tenderness cracked open inside me. His beauty appeared almost separate from him, a pure essence existing in the interplay between us, between his goodness and my cherishing of his goodness. I had never before desired to watch someone sleep.” (~30:00)

Why Five Long Stories?

• Story length was organic—some stories expanded naturally into novella length, such as “The Islanders” (~65pp) and “The Lyrebird Spell” (~70pp), while others ended sooner.
• Practical publishing considerations also influenced the final count: “You have to hit a certain number... if it had ended at 20, there would have needed to be a six story, just without question.” (35:59)

Thematic Time Capsules and Evolution

• Galway notes her books reflect the obsessions and wounds she experienced at the time of writing:
  • “I can even see a timestamp on this one...certain things like inner child work. I think anybody reading it could go, ‘Oh, she’s been to therapy, she’s done some inner child work.’ Which is great.” (37:29)
• Her first novel revealed an emerging obsession with metaphysics, a thread carried forward and heightened in this collection.

What’s Next

• Galway is working on a novel expanding "The Lyrebird Spell."
  • Explores two girls in post-war rural Australia grappling with trauma and fantasy in the wake of familial dysfunction.
  • The new novel aims to deepen existing themes—childhood trauma, the logic of fantasy, cycles of violence—now through the eyes of an adolescent confronting existential questions.
• “She’s convinced that she’s not going to repeat the mistakes of her mother. And she of course does...You almost can’t completely run away from your family unless you face your family head on.” (42:13)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Dark Whimsy and Pain:
  • “I think people who have maybe faced a great deal of darkness are some of the most enchanted people...maybe that is part of the response to it, to face the darkness and then go out into the world and see the beauty.” —Caitlin Galway [12:44]
• On Writing:
  • “I don’t think I write what pain or sadness or grief look like. I write what they feel like.” —Caitlin Galway [25:31]
• On the Open-Endedness of Stories:
  • “If you love these two characters, in my mind, it does work...Because I can’t accept lacking the closure that I want. For me, the outcome is what you want it to be. It’s just not written because that would be...a terrible ending for this story.” —Caitlin Galway [22:52]
• On Literary Obsessions:
  • “Write what obsesses you. Don’t worry if it obsesses anybody else. If it obsesses you, it will probably be fantastic.” —Holly Gattery [39:27]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:21 – Galway on how the collection organically formed
• 05:54 – Discussion of story order and development
• 08:45 – "The Wisp": Setting, summary, and themes
• 12:44 – Dark whimsy, enchantment and darkness
• 14:38 – Decisions on story geography and chronology, “The Islanders”
• 20:22 – Feeling-driven writing and lyrical style
• 27:23–31:50 – Galway reads from A Song for Wildcats
• 34:05 – Why five long stories?
• 37:29 – Stories as timestamps; thematic evolution
• 39:48 – Next project: expanding "The Lyrebird Spell" into a novel

Tone and Takeaways

The interview is intimate, insightful, and occasionally playful—reflecting the warmth between host and author. Galway’s thoughtful responses underscore her commitment to organic, truth-seeking storytelling and her fascination with how personal wounds and philosophical obsessions birth unforgettable fiction. The result is a rich conversation not just about a book, but about the essence of creative process, the role of grief and healing, and the luminous, sometimes painful, undercurrents of literary art.