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.

And guess what? Even though you weren’t there, you can be there now, because I recorded the entire event. Check it out below!

NOTE: Please forgive any shakiness that appears at times in the latter half of the video. I’d been balancing my Flip camcorder on my knee, but then my leg fell asleep and I switched to holding it in my hand alone, which caused some of that. But I think it’s not too distracting, and the video should prove entertaining anyway.

Once the reading was over, we hung around for awhile as Jeff autographed books …

… and then it was back to the Duncan abode, where as we sat out back chatting in the dark, Jeff captured the best photo of the night—me in the process of stealing story ideas from Andy’s brain.

Don’t tell Andy—he has so many of them I don’t even thing he noticed!

It was a fun night … and with friends like those, how could it be anything but?