Casey Bell is a writer, musician and teacher based in the high desert.
A Philadelphia transplant, Casey now calls Reno, Nevada home. Her debut short-story collection, Little Fury, is out now with Metatron Press.
Casey’s short fiction appears here:
Community of Caring in Sequestrum
Sybil and the Saguaro in Cream City Review
Luminous through the Mist in Reed Magazine
Devil’s Pool in New South
Dirt to Sea in The Boiler
Wax Palm and Bougainvillea in The New Limestone
Review
No Man’s Land in Timber
Praise for Little Fury:
“Little Fury is a smart, unsettling marvel of feminist fabulism. (A woman fleeing postpartum hell meets Audre Lorde and Simone de Beauvoir inside a desert cactus!) As they probe the intricate ambivalences of friendship, sex, and motherhood, these stories blaze with longing and darkness and defiance and inchoate joy.”
-Leni Zumas, author of Red Clocks
“Little Fury captures the lives of its finely drawn characters with a sensitive vitality akin to the short stories of Lucia Berlin. Bell’s prose is filled with a fragrant heat that makes even the most ordinary of circumstances striking. An evocative, pleasurable debut.”
-Marlowe Granados, author of Happy Hour
"With gem-like prose, stunning moments of the surreal, and deep empathy, these luminous stories fearlessly delve into the ambivalences of contemporary womanhood, offering not only fierce portraits of loneliness and want, but also surprising possibilities for new modes of communion."
-Claire Stanford, author of Happy for You
"Little Fury explores longings of both flesh and spirit, offering glimpses of what it’s like to be free from patriarchy, what it's like to be truly free. Bell is a furiously talented, visionary writer; her stories leave me breathless, leave me believing we can make a better world."
-Gayle Brandeis, author of Drawing Breath: Essays on Writing, the Body and Loss
"These impassioned stories are viscerally angry, heartrendingly sad, and mordantly funny—often all at once—and told in fierce, controlled, gorgeous prose."
-Christopher Coake, author of You Would Have Told Me Not To
Endless thanks to artist/writer/friend, Jordan Caroompas, who created this trailer on analog film at Mono No Aware. Music by Fine Motor.
Fine Motor
Casey is the drummer and singer in the indie-rock band, Fine Motor (Exotic Fever Records). Though it would be easier in every way, she does not use a Phil-Collins-style headset mic. You can listen to Fine Motor on any streaming service you prefer and you can check out a live-from-the-livingroom set here and see a recorded live show at The Holland Project here. And here is a music video shot in the high desert hills. Fine Motor vinyl is available through Exotic Fever and Sundance Books and Music.
GRR
Casey is the co-director of GRR, a music camp for self-identified girls, trans and gender-expansive youth that works to counter the under-representation of marginalized gender identities in the music world. GRR facilitates instrument instruction, band coaching, and workshops on social justice, creative expression and self love.