My Story
My name is Casey M. Ball, and I’m a creator of all things. That’s the best way I can describe myself. I write novels, yes—but I also make music, crochet and knit, build software, and constantly look for new ways to shape something meaningful out of what I have. Creation, for me, has never been confined to one medium. It’s how I process the world, how I rebuild what I’ve lost, and how I connect to others. Whether I’m writing a story, composing a melody, or building a tool from scratch, I’m always chasing the same feeling: transformation.
I’m from Buffalo, New York. When I was seventeen, I had a stroke. It fractured my sense of identity, interrupted my momentum, and for a long time, left me with a heaviness I didn’t know how to carry—let alone translate into words. I knew, even back then, that I wanted to write about it. But the truth is, I couldn’t—not until years had passed. Not until the sharpest parts of the grief had dulled just enough for me to see the shape of it clearly. My debut novel, The Shadow, is the story that came out of that process. It’s not a literal retelling of what happened to me, but it’s absolutely rooted in that experience: the loss of control, the quiet grief of watching the world continue while you try to relearn yourself, and the long, painful process of not returning to who you were, but becoming someone else entirely. It’s a book about living with what you can’t undo, and finding ways to still create something new from it. It’s the book I needed—and finally had the clarity, distance, and self-compassion to write.
I write speculative fiction—fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and mystery—because those genres allow me to stretch reality just far enough to explore deep emotional truths. Fantasy gives me freedom to build the worlds I wish existed. Horror and mystery let me shape tension in a way that mirrors the emotional undercurrents I’m interested in: dread, doubt, hope, guilt, obsession, loss. I love writing stories that feel close to the bone, character-driven and psychological, with just enough lyrical language to soften the edges without losing their weight. I want readers to feel like they’re being pulled into something quiet but powerful, like the story is sitting right next to them, breathing. If a reader finishes one of my books and feels changed—even just a little, even if they can’t quite explain why—then I’ve done what I set out to do.
Outside of writing, I live a life filled with creativity. I play piano, guitar, trumpet, ukulele, and anything else I can get my hands on. I crochet and knit constantly, usually while plotting my next chapter or worldbuilding without realizing it. I’m also a full-time software developer, and I see code the same way I see story structure—flexible, elegant, and full of possibility. I live with my two beloved pets: Dilly, a boxer-bulldog mix with the soul of a retired comedian, and Kitty, a cat with an attitude and a well-earned name.
One thing readers are often surprised to learn is that I have aphantasia—a neurological condition that means I can’t visualize images in my mind. I don’t “see” my characters or settings in my head, not the way many writers describe. But I feel them. I know the weight of a room, the ache behind a character’s silence, the rhythm of footsteps down a hallway. My stories aren’t built from pictures—they’re built from sensation, memory, language, and emotion. It’s a different process, but it’s mine, and I think it’s shaped my writing in ways that are hard to explain but easy to feel on the page.
My favorite part of writing is the editing process. The first draft is discovery—it’s messy and wild and full of raw emotion. But editing is when the real story emerges, when all the threads begin to tighten, and something true begins to take form. That’s when it becomes a book I want to share with people. That’s when it feels alive.
At the heart of everything I create—whether it’s a novel, a line of code, a song, or a scarf—is the belief that transformation is possible. That even the darkest, most uncertain parts of our stories can become something meaningful when we give them shape. I don’t write to escape the world—I write to survive it, to understand it, and sometimes, to rebuild it. And if my stories can offer even a flicker of that same possibility to someone else, then I’ll keep writing them for as long as I can.