Q: Your short fiction collection, A Song for Wildcats (Dundurn Press, 2025), is remarkable in many regards: it has lilting, poetic language, haunting and gorgeous imagery, and—what we want to ask you about today—an unusual structure. Your book is made up of five longer stories, as opposed to many shorter ones. Would you tell us about writing longer form short fiction?
A: The longer form definitely comes naturally to me, though it’s not something I set out to do, so much as a reflection of how I think. I’ve learned to see my own intuitive approaches more clearly, and how to amplify or deconstruct them, challenge or upend them. Something particular that I’ve realized is that as I write, everything is somewhat of a spiderweb; ideas emerge connected to several other ideas, which connect to one layer, then another, and so on. It’s part of what feeds me electricity as a writer: this instantaneous, sparking interaction between narrative, symbolism, philosophy, psychological and emotional interiority, history, and commentary, and I find that it means the story will probably need more breathing room.
“The Lyrebird’s Bell”, for example, on a narrative level is a story about two young girls and the absorbing, even disturbing bond they form in response to isolation and familial abuse. There’s a prominent layer exploring the complexities of human relationships, and another navigating grief, trauma, and the impulse to retain some shred of love. However, it’s also a story about essentialism, and how metaphysical reflection might manifest in the mind of a child desperate to make sense of the inexplicable. It’s also about imagination, both as joy and necessity, and why it’s so often steeped in myth.
Those layers need to engage with one another thoughtfully and meaningfully, and as a result, I usually feel a certain elasticity to a story. It keeps lengthening because it demands more space to explore itself, and for me, it’s a matter of being receptive and listening.
More about A Song for Wildcats:
Infatuation and violence grow between two girls in the enchanting wilderness of postwar Australia as they spin disturbing fantasies to escape their families. Two young men in the midst of the 1968 French student revolts navigate — and at times resist — the philosophical and emotional nature of love. An orphaned boy and his estranged aunt are thrown together on a quiet peninsula at the height of the Troubles in Ireland, where their deeply rooted fear attracts the attention of shape-shifting phantoms of war.
The five long-form stories in A Song for Wildcats are uncanny portraits of grief and resilience and are imbued with unique beauty, insight, and resonance from one of the country's most exciting authors.
About Caitlin Galway:
Caitlin Galway is the author of the novel Bonavere Howl and the forthcoming short story collection A Song for Wildcats. Her work has appeared in Best Canadian Stories 2025, EVENT, Gloria Vanderbilt's Carter V. Cooper Anthology, House of Anansi's The Broken Social Scene Story Project (selected by Feist), The Ex-Puritan as the 2020 Morton Prize winner (selected by Pasha Malla), Riddle Fence as the 2011 Short Fiction Contest winner, and on CBC Books as the Stranger than Fiction Prize winner (selected by Heather O'Neill).