Once I learned, only a few days before the event, that Jeffery Ford was going to give a reading at Frostburg State University as part of the Spring 2015 Reading Series at the Center for Creative Writing, I knew I had to be there.

Hey, it’s only 80 miles each way from the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia where I live, and seeing Jeff only once or twice a year at cons is (as those who know Jeff know) definitely not enough. So on Thursday, I jumped in the Jeep and headed over to meet him at the home of Andy and Sydney Duncan, where we caught up for an hour or so before heading to dinner, and then on to the Lewis J. Ort Library, located on the campus of Frostburg State University.

Poet Gerry LaFemina, the Director of the Frostburg Center for Creative Writing (who’d joined us for dinner), introduced Andy …

… who then introduced Jeff, who read his story “Word Doll,” from the anthology The Doll Collection, edited by Ellen Datlow. (more…)