C.J. Box On Writing, Wyoming, And His Next Joe Pickett Novel

C.J. Box, the bestselling author behind the Joe Pickett series, knows Wyoming like the back of his hand, and it shows in his writing. Drawing from years of firsthand experience in the Mountain West, Box brings an authentic perspective to his novels. In this exclusive interview with Cowboys & Indians, he shares how his love for the region influences his storytelling, the lessons he learned from his journalistic background, and his approach to crafting well-rounded, real characters — both male and female — who resonate with readers of all backgrounds. That, and he gives us the details on the latest installment of the Pickett series, Battle Mountain, due out Feb. 25 from Putnam.

Cowboys & Indians: You’re from Wyoming, a place full of adventure and wonder. In the Joe Pickett series and especially in Battle Mountain, which is due out in February, it plays such an integral part of the story. How much of your love and experience of Wyoming and the West influences the books?

Box: I'd have to say an awful lot. Obviously not only the Joe Pickett novels, but the other novels as well are all set in the mountain west. The Joe Pickett novels exclusively in Wyoming. The Cassie Dewell novels are Colorado, South Dakota, Montana. But this is my stomping ground. I feel very comfortable writing about the West. And previous to the books taking off my job, I had a lot of different jobs, but my wife and I had a company where we promoted the American West on behalf of five Western states in Europe and Scandinavia and Asian countries. So I led a lot of what called familiarization tours of journalists and tour operators and travel agents around the mountain west. I'd drive them around. So I got to go everywhere, do everything. And I wasn't ever thinking at the time that it was training for novel writing in the future, but it was a crash course. I was able to do everything, go everywhere, get really intimately familiar with the gigantic region that it is. So now when I'm writing, I can draw on experience without making it up or I always think of them as novels from the inside out rather than outside in, because there are so many great books that are written about Wyoming or the mountain west by people who have just moved here or vacationed here or live in Jackson Hole, which isn't a mountain west or it is, but it isn't. And so, I think it gives some authenticity to the books to write from the inside out and to incorporate so many issues that are vitally important in this part of the country into all of the books.

C&I: One thing that strikes me about your writing style, not only the expertise about the place that these novels are set, but I'm a former newspaper writer myself, and I think you spent some time behind the news desk as well. I see the influence, but it's not overwhelming in an Ernest Hemingway style. How would you say that part of your history influenced your writing style?

Box: Well, I absolutely think the best training ground for a novelist is journalism. I didn't have that big strategic plan in mind, to start at newspapers and then write novels. But I think everybody who does journalism thinks about novels writing them. I find that most of my favorite authors have a journalism background as opposed to MFA or creative writing background. That's the kind of stuff I like to read. There's not much difference between a great lead and a feature story and a great opening line and a novel, same kind of idea. Start fast, pull you in, get to the facts, tell the story as opposed to show off your writing ability. And so I think that kind of training has really, really benefited me. And plus, with every book and every time there's a new set of issues or controversies or cultural things that I want to explore in the book, I always start out by putting on my old reporter's hat and talking to people, experts in the field, whether it's energy or conservation, natural resources. I've covered a lot of topics — wind, energy, a lot of different things like that, environmental extremism — and I go and talk to both experts on both sides so I can get that hopefully balanced feel but also convey the right facts. I never start with an agenda, I just start with an issue.

Photo courtesy of Putnam/Penguin/Random House.

C&I: I've read in a previous interview with you that, along with entertaining, you really set out with the goal to leave your readers with more knowledge than they came to the table with on some of these issues. And how much of that reflects your innate desire to be a learner and to acquire that knowledge?

Box: Well, a lot, because I write about things that I know very little about when I start. And I'll just give you an example from a couple of books ago. I was elk hunting myself and far off in the distance from where I was elk hunting, I saw a little building in the middle of nowhere that looked very high tech and small and had no power lines or wires to it. And I asked the rancher later what that was, and he said it was a Bitcoin mine. And that's a thing Bitcoin miners require — a tremendous amount of energy — and a lot of them are being built little buildings on top of old gas wells so they can draw straight from the ground and power up all these computers inside. And I found that fascinating — really remote locations in Bitcoin mining and the juxtaposition between the Old West and the New West. I finally made myself understand Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining and included that information in the book. It's not overwhelming, but hopefully interesting to readers.

C&I: In thinking about a lot of the foundational novels, I think back to Raymond Chandler and [novels] with these really tough protagonists out to figure out the problem. One thing I'm always struck with in your books is that Joe Pickett's a family man, he's such a real-world person, which defies kind of that genre convention of you don't want your audience going, well wait, where's all his kids while he is out here. But you answer a lot of those questions. Have you found that that's more difficult or is that more rewarding to have a character that people can connect to?

Box: Both. I've written a series with a detective or a cop with an alcoholic, a really tough background. And I wrote his name's Cody Hoyt. I wrote three novels including him, and I was starting a fourth, and I realized this is a cliche, this is not unique. So I killed him off in the middle of a book. I think it's much more interesting to include real world people, topics, kids, family issues into the books, and it makes it more rewarding for me. It is a little bit more difficult to always incorporate all of that, but I think without strategic planning, that kind of thing has attracted a lot of different readers. Frankly, a lot of women readers. The publisher did some focus group studies and found that about 51% of my readers are women, even though the books aren't what women want to read about — a Wyoming game warden. But I think the family aspect, the real life, small town things that happen, I think those are all make the book, I hope, richer and more interesting.

C&I: You've not shied away from smart capable female characters in your books either. And that continues with Battle Mountain, which we'll get to in a minute. I believe you have a few. You're a man, so there's always that stigma that it's hard to write the opposite gender. How have you tackled that challenge?

Box: Oh, good question. I like that question. When I finish a manuscript, it goes to all three of my adult daughters, my wife, and then they all provide notes, and then it goes to my agent who's also a female, and then my editor who's female. So it's always like when I write from a woman's point of view, it's always kind of like the dog that didn't bark. If they give me notes, that's great, but hopefully they don't say, “A woman would never say this, act like this, do this.” And if they don't, then I know I got it right. And I think a lot of it is the producer, David E. Kelly, a TV producer who's done so many shows. He’s done a lot of NYPD Blue, and he was the guy in charge of Big Sky, which is based on my novels. And we had this conversation where he said, “you write women characters really well.” And I said to him, “you're famous for that.” I mean, almost all of his shows have women protagonists. And he said, “you know what? They're just like real people, aren't they?” And that sounds goofy, but what he's saying, and I agree, is that too many male authors either oversexualize or make all their female protagonists kick ass women who can just pound everybody up. They don't have real concern. I just make them real people and that works.

C&I: Take what you can that makes them different and unique and apply that to avoid genre cliches.

Box: And as a reader and a viewer, I'm pretty sick of badass female characters who can just pound everybody around them. Not to say there aren't any like that, but there aren't all like that.

Photo courtesy of CJBox.net.

C&I: But that's not often always the most interesting thing about a person either. And with Joe Pickett, it's a true to life. He gets his ass kicked every now and again, but gets back up. I think is it's often what's within the characters and the motivation that really drives the story, not in the old school pulp detective where it's just about how big your gun is to get you through the story.

Box: Right. Not that there's anything wrong with big guns, but yes, you're right.

C&I: You’ve mentioned a number of times you've done other series beyond Joe Pickett and even standalone novels. What keeps you going back to the well for new characters? I think with a lot of people who live outside of your world, they think, well, why wouldn't he write Joe Pickett? That's what's selling. What keeps you drawing back on different stories and new characters?

Box: It usually has to do with either the location cannot be Wyoming, or the issue is just not suitable for a game warden story. The Highway is about a serial killer truck driver that could not be a Joe Pickett story, so therefore I took it outside of Wyoming, created different protagonists to address that issue that really exists. And it's the creepiest book I've ever written, and it wouldn't be good in the Joe Pickett series, so it has to do with the subject and the location.

C&I: I would say too that it’s the mood and atmosphere that you're really able to play around with as a writer that really struck people on some of the standalone novels.

Box: And I enjoy it. It’s very challenging. It's a little easier to keep a series going than to step outside it, but I think makes me a better writer by doing other things and then going back to the series.

C&I: You mentioned Big Sky, and of course Joe Pickett had his time in the sun as well, and a lot of your fans hope again one day soon. What was your experience like with that series, and did you go into it as some authors do with no preconceived notions — it's their show, I want them to run it — or did you feel a little bit of an ownership on that?

Box: Both. There have been several attempts to do a Joe Pickett TV show over the years. Most of them I'm very uncomfortable with because when I would talk to the showrunners or the producers, they would have totally different ideas. Joe Pickett, “eco warrior” kind of thing, where I thought, “the books are okay, why don't you read those?” But finally, with the Joe Pickett, the executive producers and the showrunners were fans of the books, and they were familiar. They wanted to bring out the family aspect, and I thought they did a very good job of it. I'm not someone who wants to be on the set all the time, that's horrible. Unless you really like watching the same scene 25 times. But it also, you have to kind of trust them to do it and knowing that they're going to go off in their own direction to some degree, but hopefully stick to the source material. But I think the most important thing is, my wife and I talk about this a lot, think of the TV shows as commercials for the books because it does attract new readers. Viewers are smart, they're not stupid. Even if the storyline goes a little off the rails, a viewer who's interested might say, where do these stories come from? And then seek them out. I can't give you a number, but I hear all the time from readers who said, I saw the show, I found out there were books, and now I'm reading all the books.

Photo courtesy of Paramount+.

C&I: I'm a reader myself. I know C.J. Box and those literary folks are already going to kind of know the canonical names, but you have the people who maybe pick up one or two books a year, and they're pretty selective. I think you make a great point about bringing in new types of viewers since we see so many books become a world of their own in entertainment from Game of Thrones to other books. And you've even made the circuit on podcasts and things like that. How important have you found building that kind of world in the entertainment genre is as not just a writer, but as someone whose business is selling books?

Box: Everything I do is not strategic. It just happened. But what has happened though over the years is that there are readers who become podcasters and they have certain interests that are not necessarily the book world, like Meat Eater podcasts with Steve Rinella. I do podcasts with people who do podcasts about rodeo, hunting, fly fishing, the mountain west. In is the books are different aspects of what most readers are into and that's what they want to talk about. And that brings in more readers too. And it's fun. I mean, I love to do long podcast conversations with fly fishing hosts. That's my thing. But that also brings in new readers too.

C&I: You brought up fly fishing. You've talked a number of times in interviews and it's been in your books a number of times. It's a challenging art form for sure. And why the challenge? Why not just throw a hook on with a worm, and how has getting out and really immersing yourself in that lent itself to your writing?

Box: Strangely enough, a lot of times when I'm writing and I'm having a tough time connecting A to B in a certain way, I don't sit there and stare at my screen. I go out and do something like go fishing, and then it will just simply come to me. So I'm not actively thinking about it, struggling over it, writing a sentence, deleting it. I just go out and do something and somehow my subconscious will help me connect A to B. And that's usually by doing something active, like fly fishing or hunting or just going on long walks, that kind of thing. And sometimes it happens when I'm sleeping, wake up, and now I've got figure out how to connect those things. So, it's always sort of working.

C&I: Are you a sit at the keyboard and bleed type of writer, or you let the muse work as it will?

Box: I just try to make a job out of it. I go to work every day. I always try to. My method is to start with the issue, do the research, do a bullet point outline. What I try to do is figure out how do I wrap a page turning stories around this issue like Bitcoin mining in the middle of nowhere. And then once I've got that part done, then I sit down every day to try to write a minimum of a thousand words. Some days I go off on a run and do three or 4,000. Some days it's a struggle to do a thousand words, but then the next day I start, I edit what I did the day before, and I add up the words so I know what I have to get to the next day. And I just keep pushing forward that way. So, I don't know if that's bleeding some days it only takes a couple of hours to get there to really do something. Some days it takes half a day or more.

C&I: And that struggle as a writer is no more evident than in the top 10 Western book list (available in our May/June 2025 issue, coming soon) that you provided for us with Cormac McCarthy and True Grit and some of these early just canonical names and Western literature. And I was going to ask, looking at least at the more fictional side of that list, how do you toe the line between being inspired and being influenced by those great works?

Box: Well, I used to be very concerned when I was first writing books that if I read a really, really strong, unique stylist like Cormac McCarthy, that I would be influenced and start taking on that voice. And so I would not read those kinds of books while I was writing. And then I realized: why wouldn't I want to be inspired by somewhat influenced by these really great stylists? So I don't worry about that anymore, and I don't try to mimic their styles, but I think sometimes you see a trick, you see a certain phrase, you see how they pace it, the narrative, and I can learn from that. So I don't shy away from it anymore.

C&I: It can't be too bad to be compared to Cormac McCarthy.

Box: No, but I do use quotation marks though.

Photo courtesy of C.J. Box's Facebook page.

C&I: I was also not surprised but really interested to see that a lot of the books on your top 10 list were nonfiction — Undaunted Courage, the Red Cloud biographies. How important is knowing and then using that reality of what the West is and what it was in your stories?

Box: I am really a proponent of the gritty reality as opposed to the cliche of the western where everybody kind of talks in a Southern accent in the mountain west and somewhere yonder down the road a piece kind of stuff. I really dislike that. And I think in order to make the books more realistic, I do read a lot of nonfiction and a lot of history, but I try not to replicate that. It's just mainly for just broadening my horizons, really. And it is fascinating when you realize how smart those people really were. They weren't just bumblers and the things they did and their relations like with the Native Indians at the time, was wholly different than it would be a hundred years after that. That kind of thing is interesting to see how things developed and to read books from an American Indian point of view that aren't agenda books, but realistic books. I love that.

C&I: One of my favorite afternoon reads is a Louis L’Amour novel, and he talks so much about how much history went into creating a work of fiction. And I see the same thing with yours that Joe Pickett as a character has such a modern spin, obviously for a modern audience, but yet the ideals of what made Western men western, and women for that matter, hasn't changed all that much because I think, and I'd love for you to talk to this, the place has not changed. The mountains are still just as daunting as they are then as they are now. And the winters are just as frigid as they were before. How much of capturing that spirit has tried to permeate in your stories?

Box: Well, yeah, that is one thing. I mean, it's just like where I live all of my life. We live on a little ranch, and then everything is about the weather and the roads and getting to town and getting your mail when the interstate is closed, that kind of stuff. You really are dealing with those daily issues all the time. And you can only imagine how 150 years ago, how much more difficult it was without any kind of backup. So it's not very long ago when all this stuff happened. But the other thing is reading those kind of history books, you realize how many of those initial pioneers were just strivers. They were capitalists, they were business people. They were doing things not because it was cool to wear a cowboy hat, but because they were trying to make some money and make a living and they had no backup. And I find that interesting. Almost every development in the West had to do with commerce, not culture. And it's interesting to have that driven home by reading some of that western history.

C&I: Let’s transition into Battle Mountain, your 25th Joe Pickett novel due out in February. And I got the pleasure of getting an advanced copy of that and started reading through it. In this novel, Joe Pickett and Nate Romanowski are both tasked with some pretty monumental goals in this novel. Romanowski is looking for Axel [Soledad] and about his quest for vengeance, but I won't spoil anything for those that haven't read the previous books. And then Joe, of course, has another governor his help. And I got the sense from page one, the stakes are high when you start. How important is it for you to catch people and to really raise the stakes as we start a book?

Box: I think that's extremely important. Readers have so many choices. There's so many other forms of entertainment. I think it's important to grab the reader right off the bat, hopefully by the scruff of the neck wanting to have to read the next chapter, to have to read the next page. But it's important for me too. I mean, I'm a reader. I hate it when I sit down with a book that's sent to me where I feel like it's hard work. I want to be captured by that book, not feel like it's homework. And I think you can do that by eliminating a lot of stuff. In Elmore Leonard's Rules for writing, one of the best rules is to leave out the parts people skip. And it really makes a lot of sense when you think about it. And I try to do that. So I think it's important to move it along, tell the story without a lot of embellishment and make people want to keep turning the pages.

Photo courtesy of Putnam/Penguin/Random House.

C&I: And Romanowski has kind of become a central character over these last few books, and he's obviously an interesting guy already — an outlaw falconer. But now we see him with vengeance in his heart and mind and body. What about that character really made him come to the forefront for you, and why do you keep coming back to him?

Box: Because he's just so primal. And of all the characters in all my books, that's one of the few that's based on a real person — a guy I grew up with in high school who was a falconer middle linebacker on the football team, went off to the Air Force Academy, went off to special forces, and I used to go falconry hunting with him. So I got into that world. I was never a falconer myself, but if you go falconry hunting, you're the bird dog. You're not the hunter. So, I learned about that mindset, met other falconers, really got into that strange worldview of falconry and wanted an incorporate character like that. And of course, I made him larger than life, but it's fun to write. That's another weird thing. Women readers love Nate Romanowski. They really do. And including my wife, which kind of worries me at times. But it's fun to have a larger-than-life character who will do and can do anything, whereas Joe is constrained by being law enforcement.

C&I: Well, and I think the thing that strikes me about Romanowski is that, like you said, he's so capable. He's got such a hunter mindset, but yet he finds himself out-foxed and, in some cases, outmatched and it must drive this guy crazy. I can only put myself in his mindset through your words, and Joe has done that throughout your novels as well. You expect so much, and yet something else comes out of nowhere. We find our characters who are these strong, intelligent men and women off their game in a lot of ways. How fun is that to put your characters in a predicament and to make them really work themselves out of it?

Box: I get tired of about reading books where the protagonist beats everybody up and always wins every battle in every circumstance. I think that gets boring. I think it actually adds tension when you know that things can happen to the good guys and do happen to the good guys and can come from any direction at any time. I think it makes it more compelling, more realistic, but also tension on every page. And that tension comes from conflict. And if you just win every time, it gets a little boring.

C&I: As many readers will see when they pick up the book for the first time, nature plays a huge role. We watch in the whole first opening scenes, characters interacting and trying to struggle against the elements. And obviously you're someone that's been there done that, seen you've felt the rush of frigid waters and the smell of the pine trees. How do you take something, especially for a reader in Florida or across the globe who's never been there, never going to be there, how do you capture that in words?

Box: When it comes to description and setting, that's where I'll often write, overwrite it, and then just start paring it down and editing and getting it to the always have that scene appeal to every sense in some way. The one you're talking about is the opening chapter of Battle Mountain where Nate Romanowski is walking in a river with chunks of ice hitting him to sneak up on a house. And I think you add those details, like what it feels like to have a piece of ice hit you while you're freezing to death, walking in a river, little things like that. And then getting to the place and how cold it is. And I think it makes it all more realistic and paints the picture better. And I think if you can feel it, then all the things that happened are just that more resonant.

C&I: And on the flip side of that, of course, Joe Pickett is in this novel. It's his novel, and we see him with, and I'm not spoiling anything because I think it's on the blurb released for the book, that he's tasked with finding an in-law of the governor and has kind of a rookie game warden in tow to help and maybe present some challenges too. One thing I always find, and I think it's probably because you've done this for 25 books now for longtime fans, we know Joe Pickett. We know in a way what to expect from him, but it's so cool to see him bounced against new characters and other characters who are so different from him. How does that help you in terms of showing new characters and compelling us to believe what we're reading, but also help us learn new things about a guy we've seen for 25 books now and constantly seeing have to undergo these new and exciting adventures?

Box: I think it not only helps further expand Joe Pickett's character, but one thing I think I always have to remember in fiction, I think sometimes writers forget this, is that when you create a character, you're not just creating a character to advance the plot. This character has their own personal history agenda, motivations, and it's important to figure out what those are before they interact with Joe Pickett. So it's not just something to move the story along, but why does this person exist? What are they trying to get out of it? What frustrations do they experience dealing with Joe Pickett? I think all that stuff's important and interesting. And in Battle Mountain, with the younger female game warden, Joe Pickett really feels like he's an old man interacting for one of the first times. And when this game warden says things his daughter would say to him, it kind of throws him off and he feels a little guilty.

C&I: Right. I can't help but think there's some personal connection in that relationship.

Box: Sure. Absolutely.

Photo courtesy of CJBox.net.

C&I: And like you said before, you're pleasing two masters in terms of your longtime readers who know and love Joe Pickett and expect certain things and new readers who have never read a C.J. Box novel before. How have you tried to set up Battle Mountain to appeal to both sides?

Box: Yeah, it's always kind of a trick because in a long time series, you don't want to give so much back. You've got to give enough backstory that a new reader is not lost in the middle of this roaring stream. Enough backstory, but not so much that a longtime reader rolls their eyes and go, “yeah, I knew all this.” So that's always a little tricky just to give enough information to bring you up to date, but not so much that it's boring for the person who's followed everyone. Battle Mountain is very much a continuation of the last book. That doesn't always happen. Some of them are pure standalones in a way, but this one is a continuation with Nate's quest for revenge. And it's a road trip book. That’s always kind of fun; to have Nate and or Joe rolling into some little, small town or weird place where they've got to interact and where things are likely to happen. It’s fun to do that.

C&I: Battle Mountain is No. 25. Is there an end game for you and Joe Pickett and you've almost become his handler in a way to a lot of loyal readers. How do you juggle that responsibility and what does the future hold for Joe Pickett and C.J. Box?

Box: You know what, I never think in those terms. I don't have an end game. I've never had a whole narrative arc; that's not going to go well. For one thing, I never knew I was going to write 25 novels in that series, but I think if you have an end game in mind, even subconsciously, you're going to telegraph that to the reader in the book. And I don't want to do that. I don't want somebody to think they know what's going to happen. I just go book to book. I never think about the next book until I'm done with this book, for example. I think that keeps it fresh. But the books are also written in real time. Joe Pickett is now 51. There's going to be a point where no one wants to read about a 70-year-old game warden, and I don't want to write about a 70-year-old game. So there will be a time when it ages out, but that's still a ways away. And as long as I can keep coming up with fresh things, I'm happy with it, and I don't worry about the long game.

C&I: C.J., thank you so much for your time. I know so many of your readers and book fans alike will get a kick out of hearing about your history and what to expect when Battle Mountain is released in February. And we look forward to reading it and also to the next one.

Box: Thanks. I love Cowboys & Indians Magazine, and I have for a long time. And it's so interesting how popular the magazine has become, at least in my world of people I know.

To order all of C.J. Box's books, and to see his next tour stops, visit CJBox.net.

PHOTOGRAPHY: Header photo courtesy of Dave Neligh. From the November/December 2018 issue.