Casey Reiland

@caseyreiland.bsky.social

370 Followers 316 Following

Bad sleeper | In search of the perfect bagel | Words published or forthcoming in F(r)iction, HAD, Blue Mesa Review, On the Seawall, and elsewhere www.caseyreiland.com

Screenshot of If Books Could Kill Podcast with the title “Three Cups of Tea”
A deer looking curiously out of a shrine in Nara, Japan
Black lab mix sitting near snow
Screenshot from Justin Murphy’s X post: What if Jamir Nazir is just a sincere, passionate writer using technology to explore new approaches to literature, and Granta is now the most daring, avant-garde journal of contemporary writing? This emerging collective deference to Pangram among digitally cosmopolitan readers strikes me as more philistine than an Indian businessman trying to write poetry or tell stories with the help of his computer. Who here is really most guilty of outsourcing their taste to the machine? And if you find this man's writing unworthy of the prize, then Granta's mistake was trusting in a human to be the reviewer; had they employed an Al judge then his piece would have been rejected. The truth is that Al will challenge our viewpoints about the nature of high culture and high-cultural production much more deeply than people realize. Most of the emerging critical lenses shrink into irreducible contradiction if you think about them for more than a minute. life B11
Book cover of Ricken’s self help book from Severance called, The You You Are”
God of the Woods by Liz Moore
New Yorker headline that shows a hand writing “Ishmael” on the right and a robot hand on the left writing “Call me.” Underneath is the headline “Is It wrong to write a book with A.I.?” By Joshua Rothman.
Tabby cat sticking his head out of pink cat tree, with wide yellow eyes
A poem titled, At My Aunt's Funeral, I Read in Her High School Senior Yearbook That She Hated Clichés, So I Decided to Take an Overused Phrase from the Service and Tell You a Story About Her The phrase in the middle reads, “She was a fighter.” "In the summer of my seventh year, I became fixated on water webbing sunlight at the bottom of a pool. 2We swam in my aunt's backyard—my sister, my cousin, and me. Aunt Sue didn't often join us. *She stayed inside and watched shows that featured possessed mothers, women's bodies drifting to a muddied shore, teenagers screaming for help from the bottom of a pit. Rhythmic almost, the same mistakes these characters made repeatedly, my aunt clicking on the lamp and muttering, I can't believe they did that, I can't believe they did that. Some years later, her liver would fail, and then her kidneys, and then her legs, too tired to take the stairs or pump in the breaststroke, and I could tell you why, but then I would be just like the pastor in his eulogy saying, fighter, warrior, a heart of gold. These days, I'm furious about the impasse of her life until I think of how one time-after I pushed my sister into the corner of a table—she told me she hit my dad in the head with a shovel when she was a child, blood dribbling in dark streams over his blond hair just after he'd been provoking her, and I wondered how she could make me feel so light despite my cold-blooded blunder, how I could feel like I was floating outside of the rubbery Intex in her backyard while we bonded over the horrors we had caused. Every question after that one drew me back to that feeling: How hard I could squeeze my lungs; how fervently I could kick my legs into a furor of foam. 1°How-if I prodded enough-fast my aunt could swim toward me if she was a shark, and we, the mermaids, fleeing from her jaws. "For a moment, she must have forgotten what was real and what was not. 12Gleaming placoid scales, her own lotus skin, molars-now-turned-serrated-teeth finding my …
A brown tabby lying on a green bag, looking lovingly at the person behind the camera
Cover of F*CKFACE AND OTHER STORIES by Leah Hampton
An email that reads: 2026 LCC Grants Fellowship - Congratulations! Dear Casey Reiland, This email serves as official notice that your Literature - Artist Fellowship grant application # 38057-LCC026 has been approved by the Somerville Arts Council (SAC) in the amount of
Album cover of Eliot Smith’s EITHER/OR
An excerpt of an email that reads: “The holiday season can be a time of celebration and joy, but it can also be demanding. Between family gatherings, travel, financial considerations, and year-end stress, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. It is also easy to become so focused on others that we neglect our own feelings and needs. It's important to regularly check in with yourself. To support your mental and emotional well-being during this season, our Employee Assistance Program (EAP) has compiled a Holiday Resource Guide (attached). The Holiday Resource Guide provides: Simple ways to manage holiday stress Tips for setting boundaries and finding balance Support for coping with loneliness or burnout Self-care ideas Info on how to reach your EAP for free, confidential support”
The book A SWIM IN A POND IN THE RAIN by George Saunders sitting on a white blanket. A hand with purple nail polish holds one corner of the cover.
Green box from Submittable that says “Accepted”
The Connection The space between the sternum and the slope of flesh says so much. Here, a quarter, shiny like macadam in the morning sun, now thrown at her chest. A boy says, Look at how it slides right over her middle. Boarded, flat, fabled. This too a fable: Lavender. Tea tree oil. How many times have I written about what my body could not give? Instead, consider my grandmother, her torso gaping like mine. My sister insists we inherited our breasts from her, and I’ll admit this once would have split me of resentment— girl who wants to take up space, who wants to be enclosed perfectly into someone’s fist. Always myself witnessed in another’s eyes, a mark, a haunting, ruptured ribs in the canyons of their irises. But in my grandmother’s ripening, I now behold how we are bound, hanging on to what we still can, cupping the curves of each other’s hands. The thing we contain: a sphere of silver, spinning like a coin.
Then we had our first child. I had made the decision to be a stay-at-home dad, with the idea that I'd squeeze in my writing early in the morning and after bedtime. This meant that I'd have even less time to see my friends, but I didn't mind. Being a new dad and having vast meadows of time to bond with my son was exhilarating. After a while, though, the repetitiveness of our routines - playground, park, the other playground — began to take a toll on me. I was spending all day in my own head or uttering monosyllables, and I slowly became aware of a strange new feeling: For the first time in my life, I was lonely.
Excerpt from NYT: “In late 2018, I found something that finally resonated. And I found it on — alas - "The Joe Rogan Experience." Let me just say, when you go down any podcast rabbit hole, you are more or less algorithmically guaranteed to end up listening to Joe Rogan. And while many of his ideas made me wince, I found myself spellbound by his..”
Ilium My sister asks me if I’m planning to procreate in a way that suggests I shouldn’t: salty, stinging, heavy— like the ocean we are floating in. A child on the shore plays with a baby doll in the sand. Just the other day, it was 60 degrees in Antarctica, and I was so angry I wanted the penguins to trill, Fuck you, and slither belly down from all us humans into the sea. The child waves the meaty plastic arms of the doll, and I haven’t answered my sister’s question. My love is optimistic: The earth will change, but we will acclimate. Others say the opposite: We will become extinct, and little organisms will survive and renew under our cells. There is something hopeful about both theories. We perennate or become silky wraiths in the soil. I wonder if I want a baby because it’s what is expected of me, like the child pressing the doll to her chest, like how my sister and I would stuff Cabbage Patch Kids up our shirts, sprawl on our bedroom carpet, and slide their chunky bodies from our clothes. Nothing is certain except life is always making or breaking, making or breaking. My legs pump in the water, my pelvis slightly cracking, and I don’t say that I’m afraid, even though it’s true my bones will soften when a tiny cranium crests through my ilium, the pain surrendering to that punctured cry, the fury at the world alive in that first breath.
The Ilium My sister asks me if I’m planning to procreate in a way that suggests I shouldn’t: salty, stinging, heavy— like the ocean we are floating in. A child on the shore plays with a baby doll in the sand. Just the other day, it was 60 degrees in Antarctica, and I was so angry I wanted the penguins to trill, Fuck you, and slither belly down from all us humans into the sea. The child waves the meaty plastic arms of the doll, and I haven’t answered my sister’s question. My love is optimistic: The earth will change, but we will acclimate. Others say the opposite: We will become extinct, and little organisms will survive and renew under our cells. There is something hopeful about both theories. We perennate or become silky wraiths in the soil. I wonder if I want a baby because it’s what is expected of me, like the child pressing the doll to her chest, like how my sister and I would stuff Cabbage Patch Kids up our shirts, sprawl on our bedroom carpet, and slide their chunky bodies from our clothes. Nothing is certain except life is always making or breaking, making or breaking. My legs pump in the water, my pelvis slightly cracking, and I don’t say that I’m afraid, even though it’s true my bones will soften when a tiny cranium crests through my ilium, the pain surrendering to that punctured cry, the fury at the world alive in that first breath.
A sign with the headings “Sandwiches” and “Salads” and each food item under the meaning in prove from $19.55-$22.99
A picture of a Microsoft word document open with a notification on top that says, “Close this app to update.” A subheading underneath reads, “Click Continue to quit ‘Microsoft Word’ and complete the update.” Below that subheading are two buttons. One is gray and says, “Cancel.” And the other is blue and says, “Continue.”
From a page from Stephen King’s IT: “This boy, whose name was either Frankie or Freddy Ross (ot maybe Roth), had been out prospecting for goodies with a gadget of his own invention, which he called THE FABULOUS GUM-STICK. When he talked about it you could tell he thought about it like that, in capital letters (and maybe neon, as well). THE FABULOUS GUM-STICK was a birch branch with a big wad of bubble-gum stuck on the tip. In his spare time Freddy (or Frankie) walked around Derry with it, peering into sewers and drains. Sometimes he saw money —pennies mostly, but sometimes a dime or even a quarter (he referred to these latter, for some reason known only to him, as "quay-monsters"). Once the money was spotted, Frankie-or-Freddy and THE FABULOUS GUM-STICK would swing into action. One downward poke through the grating and the coin was as good as in his pocket.”
Miss Hannigan from the movie Annie (1982) standing in a doorway with her arms out in a purple dress.
A bowl of spicy beef noodle soup with bok choy.
A piece of paper held down by two rocks that reads, “OUTEN THE LIGHTS: STORIES by Casey Reiland A thesis submitted to the MFA Program and the University of Wyoming in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MFA in Creative Writing May 2024”
Three books stacked on top of one another: SPACEMAN OF BOHEMIA by Jaroslav Kalfař LITTLE EYES by Samanta Schweblin THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE by Mariana Enriquez
Three answers with the third one circled that states, “yanked us out of that lake like a wife did when she caught her cheating husband at a bar with his secretary.”
Close up of tabby car with a scrunched up face, eyes blank as a void.
A three cut split of Cady from the movie Mean Girls saying, “I mean, it’s just plastic. Could really just…” and snapping a plastic crown in half. Bottom clip featuring Damien gasping.
A picture of a sculpture that has a head of a crow and the body of a woman. Sitting on top of a black coffee table. In the background, more sculptures of people doing handstands.
Hiking in southern Wyoming: a dirt trail with a black dog. In the distance, a row of golden aspen trees.
New Richard Siken poem called “Pornography.” (It won’t let me post the whole poem in the alt text!)
A brown tabby sitting on a windowsill, giving the look of “What song are you gonna throw my name into today, boss?”
Cover of Slade House by David Mitchell
Josh Peck in Drake and Josh doing his classic “Megan” face.