AUTHOR CALLAN WINK HAS been awarded fellowships by the National Endowment for the Arts and Stanford University, where he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow. His stories and essays have been published in The New Yorker, Granta, Playboy, Men’s Journal, and the Best American Short Stories. He’s the author of a novel, August, and a collection of short stories, Dog Run Moon. He lives in Livingston, Montana, where he’s a fly-fishing guide on the Yellowstone River. His new book is Beartooth, just out from Spiegel and Grau. Listen in and read along as we discuss how to start a writing project, and much more.
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Marion: I’m delighted to welcome you here, Callan. How are you?
Callan: I’m doing well. Thank you for having me, Marion.
Marion: Well, it’s a joy to have you here. And listening to a now seven-year-old interview with you on Montana Public Radio, you quote a former teacher who once reminded you that when you were in fourth grade, you wrote an essay that said you wanted to be a poet and a fisherman. So let’s start there. We’ll get to the fishing. But what about the poetry? What was and is its appeal? And what did you do with it?
Callan: Yeah, well, I think, like most, I would say most writers, I got my interest in writing from reading. I was always a huge reader. I grew up in a house with no television, kind of out in the middle of the woods. And so we would go to the library every week and I would read a lot. I wasn’t reading the classics. I wasn’t reading poetry either. But I think as a young person, the allure of something you feel like you can finish in a rather short amount of time. I never said my poetry was any good. But just something about finishing something in a short order where you could look at it and be like, “Oh, I wrote that and maybe captured some image or feeling that I was having.” So poetry was the start. And then, like I said, after a while, I realized I was not very good at it. And all of my poems were just short stories that I was too lazy to write. So when I shifted over to that, I found my mode.
Marion: Well, we’re glad you did. And I think that poetry does help to develop the eye. You know, you’re kind of looking one word at a time. But I’m very glad that you moved on to a bit of a longer, you know, many longer forms.
And along with being a writer, you’re a fly fishing guide in Montana. And I fly fish, as we talked about before we went live. And for me, the singular joy I experience in a stream is, well, it’s singular. No other place for me affords that opportunity to feel the vibration of the world. And, you know, you can really feel the water. It’s hard to have that experience. And you’ve contributed personal essays to Angler’s Journal for years, including the winter 2025 issue. And I was thinking about that, about the role of the fly fishing guide. I’ve been guided many times. And what the guide is observing. And I started to wonder about, it seems to me, maybe it’s the perfect place from which to report on humanity. So why don’t you just talk to us a little bit, since my audience is writers, and they want to know how to sort of pivot and look without being caught in it, or it’s an odd role. So what about being the guide has served you in terms of your eye?
Callan: Yeah, that’s a good question. And I did an event the other night in Missoula, Montana with a friend of mine, great writer, Chris Dombrowski, who’s also a fishing guide. And we were talking about this very question. And I have to give him credit here, because this was actually something he said that really resonated with me. I’d never thought about it this way. But, you know, both guiding and, and the act of writing, you know, you’re sort of setting a story, you’re setting the stage for a story in the boat while guiding each day is sort of, you’re in control of the narrative as the guide, and hopefully your clients don’t necessarily feel like they’re being led with a heavy hand.
If you’re guiding well, there should be this sort of sense that they’re in fact doing it on their own, where we’re actually you as the guide are doing most of it, quite honestly, but it’s sort of similar in that regard.
But observation, of course, important for both. I mean, guiding, you’re, you are sort of in tune to, for me, it’s the Yellowstone River where I guide mostly. And it’s something that’s just always kind of constantly on my mind during guide season when I’m on it, you know, pretty much every day. You’re always sort of thinking about what the river is doing. It’s a dynamic system that changes every day, fluctuates in flow, that sort of thing.
So yeah, I think there are some similarities in terms of like, getting material from guiding. That is something I’m not totally sure on. I probably have at times, you know, one thing I really like in my own writing is I like writing dialogue. And so I guide a lot of people from Texas for whatever reason. And there’s just something about a good old boy from Texas. They have this sort of, you know, wonderful vernacular that they constantly use, little turns of phrases. So I do steal from those people quite often. Guiding is very busy. It’s a very busy job, how I do it. It’s in a boat, you’re on kind of a dangerous river. There’s a lot of concerns. It’s not relaxing the way like if you were to go fly fishing on your own might be. It’s a job. It’s a service job.
Marion: Yeah. Oh, yeah. The vernacular of the Texans, I’m just sort of stuck on that like “big hat, no cattle” kind of, they do tend to say things, you know, I’ve been referred to as a “yellow dog Democrat” by a Texan. And I thought, yep.
Callan: Yeah, that belongs in a novel somewhere for sure.
Marion: Yes. Yes. The suggestion being that I would vote for a yellow dog if the dog was a Democrat. I never understood the aspect of the yellow part, but I just love the phrase and I wear it proudly, you know. But yeah, yeah, it is remarkable what people say sometimes as writers, of course, we just think, okay, so do you carry a notebook with you when you’re out? Or do you just try to remember the vernacular that your clients use?
Callan: I usually have a notebook, at least in my truck, you know, and then usually I can remember things over the course of the day and then I’ll scribble something down when I get a chance. Yep. So, I always have little pieces of paper. And then I tend to lose the pieces of paper and then find them again. And yeah, it’s not an organized system by any means.
Marion: Yeah, there’s nothing like having one of those pieces of paper turn up months later and going, I wonder what that’s about. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Well, that’s the reality of the life. And your new book, Beartooth, is, well, to use one of the most tired of all things ever said about books, but one of my favorites still, it’s impossible to put down. And that’s just true in no small part because of the people you created. So, let’s talk about characterization.
You’ve created a cast here of distinct people, most particularly two distinct brothers, Hazen and Thad. And right from the start, they’re well-drawn as very different people. So, as I said, my audience is writers and writers struggle with this, especially new writers who tend to give us height, weight, age, name, eye color. When we want what? What is it that we most want or need to know about a character in the beginning of a book?
Callan: That’s a really good question. And, you know, probably not one that I necessarily think about when I’m sitting down to write, but one that sort of develops in the process of writing and probably editing as well. But I think for me, at least starting with the character’s problems, you know, and no two characters are probably going to have the same exact problem.
And coming at it from a point of conflict is usually where I come from and then seeing how different people would maybe respond to that. You know, also getting characters started from a kernel of a real person that you know is something I do quite frequently, then the characters tend to take on this organic sort of growth over the course of a novel. And they’re nothing like, you know, the little kernel of the start of the character, but you need a place to start. So, either the main conflict that you want, you know, the character to be struggling with, or maybe you recognize an interesting character trait in someone you’ve come across and you sort of extrapolate the whole character from there.
Marion: It’s good advice. And I think that conflict thing bears a little more conversation because the greatly oversimplified, the rule of screenwriting and novel writing is to put people in conflict and see what they do. It’s also the stuff of memoir where we strategize in the struggle and reveal who we are. So, choosing conflict is a really interesting thing to do. You know, you say, “Okay, I’m going to write about this particular conflict.” In Beartooth, you take on revenge as one of the themes. So, it’s interesting. I love the subject of revenge. It’s just got no end of complexity. But talk to me about how you actually get into this because you know, it’s one thing to say you’re going to write about revenge and take on that theme. But the assignment, alone in a room with a blinking cursor and the keyboard is to know how. So, did you research? Did you read up on revenge in, you know, psychology today? Did you draw from what you thought you knew and learn even more as you wrote about it, as you just suggested? You know, the characters reveal themselves. But give us some of your thinking on how you get revenge right.
Callan: In this case, it’s definitely not something that I researched. And it very much was something that sort of developed from this character that I had created. I mean, this story has gone through a lot of different versions. The premise of the story I’ve had for many years, I mean, it started as a story, short story that moved into a long, somewhat boring novel. And then I cut it back to a pretty tight 80-page novella that was decent. And then publishers that we sent it to said, you know, this is nice. Could you make it into a novel?
So then I made it into a novel again. But anyway, along that sort of path, the revenge element of the story came in pretty much solely based on the character of Hazen and his kind of, his character traits. He’s prone to like rash behavior. You know, I think there’s probably more than one sort of type of revenge. There’s like the cold plotting revenge. And that’s not really his style. This is like a reaction to an injustice. And it seemed fitting for what his character had become in the process of drafting the novel.
Marion: Yeah, it is very interesting in terms and it isn’t, I don’t know if there’s a typical revenge story, but it does definitely reveal the character of Hazen. So talk to me about planning. Do you use index cards on your wall? Do you use an online program? Do you write out an outline or a map? Do you sketch things out? Are you one of those people that just goes to the keyboard and says, I don’t know, let’s see what comes up. Just give the people listening who are, as I said, writers, some idea of how you map this out.
Callan: Yes. So I wish I had a system because that would make this a lot easier. You know, it’s kind of a funny thing in that this is my third book now. And as far as I can tell, each one has gotten harder as opposed to getting easier. But for me, it’s a long process of revision.
So I’m not a planner. I start cranking and I try to write a draft of something as quickly as I possibly can and then put it away for as long as I can stand to do that. And then try to come back and look at it with somewhat fresh eyes and see, you know, if there’s things I can work on that way. But for me, momentum is key. And knowing that a lot of it is not going to be very good or not make the final cut is okay, because I feel like I am sort of doing the work of writing and I can sort of justify my existence that way. And just putting words on paper and knowing that it’s going to be a really long haul in revision.
Marion: And what I’ve been given the advice many times to put it away, put it away. And I work with writers all day long as a teacher. And I sometimes say to somebody, okay, you got to put this in a drawer for a couple of weeks, at least three weeks, at least and not touch it and see what happens. So what do you think it is about that? I mean, it’s a, it’s a time tested idea for writers. People will tell you this. I was told it by my first editor. What do you think happens to us and to the tale when we put it away?
Callan: For me, I mean, the kind of familiarity sort of falls away. I’ve never had a great mind for retention of things I read, which used to annoy me when I was in my grad school and other people could just remember everything they’ve ever read and then talk about it intelligently. I tend to forget stuff that I’ve read, which I think in some ways helps me as a writer, because when I’m sitting down to write, I don’t have the specter of all these thousands of novels I’ve probably read in my life haunting me, you know.
But in terms of editing, when I put it away on a very basic level, I mean, I put this one away for three or four years probably and wrote another book, you know, in the meantime. And on a basic level, I could not remember some of the plot points of where things were going. But when I went back to reread it, it was very easy for me to see like, oh, this is getting really boring here. You know, I’m just wandering in the dark. All of this can be cut. It just seemed like kind of obvious with that amount of time. I was seeing it as if I hadn’t written it, but I had obviously. So yeah. Yeah. Familiarity. That is a great word and it breaks that familiarity.
Marion: The ability to come back to it as a cold reader allows us, of course, to edit it. It also allows us to see what’s repetitive and it allows us to see what’s left out. I frequently find myself expression I use to myself is it’s still in my heart, but it’s not on the page. Because if you’re familiar with a story, as you know, you write just kind of the, oh, I don’t know, the sort of the beams of it. But you’ve left out the windows and doors frequently. They’re there in your head, but they’re not on the page.
So: familiarity, that’s incredibly generous. I love that. And I think it’s very, very helpful.
So let’s talk about I a little bit. The writers listening struggle with writing what they know, meaning that when it’s the air they actually breathe, the people they actually commune with, the familiar, they think, well, how good can this be? You know, these are the people I know. How interesting can they be? But we’re looking at what we have around us when we’re developing our I and keeping our I. So talk to me a bit about observing within your familiar community, starting places, seeing things, preserving what you see within your own backyard. I think it’s a skill, but I think it doesn’t get as much conversation as young writers needed to get.
Callan: Yeah, that’s a good question. I mean, for me, some of this is just sort of your tendencies as a human being. I mean, I’ve always been sort of a sit back and watch kind of guy, eavesdropping. I feel like when you become a writer, you get your license to eavesdrop when you’re in a bar. And so I don’t even, it’s not like a conscious thing I do, but I’m always listening to what people are talking about for better or worse. And in terms of just the sort of I for the environment or in my case, often it’s the natural world.
I mean, one thing I am lucky in that I live in Montana where the natural world kind of smacks you over the face. I mean, it was 22 below this morning, windchill, and I was out trying to walk around and it was just… you know, unbelievable drifts of snow blowing. And I mean, you can’t ignore it, you know, like if you’re going to go out in it, you sort of have to suit up and that makes you look at it, you know, at least for me, it’s not something that fades into the background very often. I mean, I realize not everyone lives in Montana, but I think, you know, approaching a place you know well with a new eye could be as simple as trying to inhabit the character you’re trying to write better, you know, if it’s a younger person or a person that sees the world in a different way than you do, you can try to imagine what something would look like to this character if that makes, yeah.
Marion: And do you interview people? Do you call people up and say, I’ve got this character who runs a flower shop or cuts up deer for a living or, you know, I mean, you’ve got these characters dragging, well, I don’t wanna give away too, well, I don’t think I’m giving away anything with just like talking about the opening scene, cutting up bear, you know, that’s not something I know how to do. And maybe it’s something you know how to do, but do you interview people about their specialties before you write about them or do you just write from your own personal experience?
Callan: You know, I haven’t done a lot of interviewing yet at this point, I’m not saying I never will, but I will research things and read and try to get sort of a background on things that I’m not personally familiar with. But part of it, the stuff I write about, I do have a pretty solid familiarity with it. My last novel had more farming, ranching in it and, you know, I’ve never worked on a ranch, but I’m surrounded by it, you know, so it wasn’t, I had to do a little research and ask a few people some specific questions, but that’s about as far as I’ve gone at this point. But I do think it’s a good idea, although sometimes I do feel like the act of researching can become this sort of procrastination, procrastination crutch where you get so into the research that you kind of forget to ever write your novel.
Marion? You think writers are procrastinators, Callan, really? Yeah, the research hole can be an addiction. Although I have to say, I’ve never had anyone say no to me when I’ve called them up and said, can you tell me about what you do for a living? People are always very generous and they wanna contribute to a book. Yeah, it can go very, very well. In review after review and blurb after blurb, we read you being associated with Tom McGuane, Annie Proulx, Jim Harrison, writers whose work we’ve read and love and all of whom have enormous range.
I marvel that Jim Harrison could write about the outdoors as well as about food and drink and Proulx can be in a fishing industry in Maine as well as with Western ranchers. And, you know, McGuane on bone fishing is as good as McGuane on men as they age. It’s just a great place to be associated with. I mean, truly and well-earned. So the question is when you get compared to those people, what’s your obligation? In other words, are you supposed to push the genre further? Are you supposed to sit comfortably within it? Do you ever think about that about, it’s just, there’s so many references in your reviews to those wonderful writers. And so I said, it’s well-deserved company, but do you think about the genre in doing it differently or being part of that? You know, it is not something I spend a whole lot of time thinking about, to be honest.
Callan: You know, I’m definitely honored to be thought of in the same sphere as those writers who are great and I’ve admired for sure. But all I’ve really been doing is just trying to write my stories and not spending a lot of time thinking about, you know, where I exist in the existing realm of Western literature at this point, if there even is such a thing, you know? So, no, I don’t think about it much, to tell you the truth.
Marion: Yeah, that’s interesting. And I would hope not, right? I would hope that we just exist on our own, but it’s fascinating to me. I kept thinking, gosh, well, wait a minute, in this review, they haven’t mentioned Annie Proulx yet. Oh, no, here it comes. There we are. Okay, good.
And I don’t know, you know, writers are told, give us some comps, you know? When you’re pitching your book, tell us it’s gonna be a mashup of great expectations and eat, pray, love. And it’s like, what? Yeah. Oh, well, they both, we know both those books, but it’s a little nutty, you know? The world of publishing is a little nutty that way. And I just wondered about your comfort level, but I’m glad you don’t give it an awful lot of thought. Let’s talk about form for a minute. As we established in the opener of this interview, you wrote some bad poetry, as you say, but also short stories and novels. And how do you discern when judging what form you might like to use for something that starts to interest you?
How do you make that decision that this is a personal essay or it’s a novel? You talked a little bit about expanding and contracting the novel to novella to novel again, but how about when you’re just starting to get that itch or feel that grit of a story, do you immediately assign it a form or do you just start writing and seeing what kind of grit it’s got?
Callan: Yeah, you know, that’s probably changed a little for me as I’ve been doing this for a little while longer. I used to really enjoy writing short stories. I mean, it was probably the most fun writing I did, if you could ever call writing fun, but just the reality of the publishing world has sort of, you know, it’s very hard to make any sort of career writing fiction in general, but even less so writing short fiction.
So yeah, just reality is sort of dictated that I write novels and, you know, I’m still trying to figure that out. I think before when I sat down to write, I would generally think in terms of a short story and now it’s definitely where could this story fit into the larger framework of the novel I’m working on, you know? So sometimes I do think of novels as short stories put together. It doesn’t always work out that way, but you can often, if you have this little idea for a story, you can put that in your novel you’re working on and sort of feel like you’re writing a short story.
Marion: Absolutely. Well, I think that the new book is beautiful, Beartooth, and I’m very grateful for you coming with us today to talk about it. I wish you all the best with it. I’m delighted you were published by Spiegel and Grau as we talked about at the outset. They’ve made a beautiful book and I’m so glad they’ve been so good to you. And thank you. Thank you for agreeing to talk with me today.
Callan: Oh, it was wonderful. Thank you for having me. You’re so welcome.
Marion: The author is Callan Wink. See more on him at callan wink dot com. His new book is Beartooth, just out from Spiegel and Grau. Get it wherever books are sold. I’m Marian Roach-Smith and you’ve been listening to QWERTY. QWERTY is produced by Overit Studios in Albany, New York. Reach them at overit studios dot com. Our producer is Jacqueline Mignot. Our assistant is Lorna Bailey.
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