Jeffrey Ford

Jeffrey Ford at KGB bar, 2006

Jeffrey Ford (born November 8, 1955 in West Islip, New York) is an American writer in the fantastic genre tradition, although his works have spanned genres including fantasy, science fiction and mystery. His work is characterized by a sweeping imaginative power, humor, literary allusion, and a fascination with tales told within tales. He is a graduate of Binghamton University, where he studied with the novelist John Gardner.^[1]

He lives in Ohio and teaches writing part-time at Ohio Wesleyan University. He has also taught as a guest lecturer at the Clarion Workshop for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers (2004 and 2012), The Antioch University Summer Writing Workshop (2013), LitReactor – 4 Week Online Horror Writing Course (2012), University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing (2011), The Richard Hugo House in Seattle, Washington, (2010).

Ford has contributed over 130 original short stories to numerous print and online magazines and anthologies – The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, MAD Magazine, Weird Tales, Clarkesworld Magazine, Tor.com, Lightspeed, Subterranean, Fantasy Magazine, The Oxford Book of American Short Stories, Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, New Jersey Noir, Stories, The Living Dead, The Faery Reel, After, The Dark, The Doll Collection, etc. His fiction has been translated into over fifteen languages and published around the world.^[2]

Awards

His stories and novels have been nominated multiple times for the World Fantasy Award, the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Award, the International Horror Guild Award, the Fountain Award, Shirley Jackson Award, the Edgar Allan Poe Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the Locus Award, the Seiun Award, the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire, the Nowa Fantastyka Award, and the Hayakawa Award.

• The Physiognomy (1998) (World Fantasy Award)
• The Fantasy Writer's Assistant (2003) (World Fantasy Award)
• "Creation" (2003) (World Fantasy Award)
• "Botch Town" (2007) (World Fantasy Award)
• "The Empire of Ice Cream" (2004) (Nebula Award for Best Novellette)
• "Exo-Skeleton Town" (2005) (Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire for best translated story)
• "The Annals of Eelin-Ok" (2005) (The Fountain Award for excellence in the short story)^[3]
• The Girl in the Glass (2005) (Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Paperback Original)
• The Shadow Year (2009) (World Fantasy Award)^[4]
• The Shadow Year (2008) (Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel)
• The Drowned Life (2009) (World Fantasy Awards)^[4]
• “A Natural History of Autumn” (2012) (Shirley Jackson Award)
• Crackpot Palace (2012) (Shirley Jackson Award)^[5]

Bibliography

Novels

• Ford, Jeffrey (1988). Vanitas. New York: Space and Time. 
• The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque (2002)
• The Girl in the Glass (2005)
• The Cosmology of the Wider World (2005)
• The Shadow Year (2008)

Well-Built City trilogy

• The Physiognomy (1997)
• Memoranda (1999)
• The Beyond (2001)

Collections

• The Fantasy Writer's Assistant (2002)
• The Empire of Ice Cream (2006)
• The Drowned Life (2008)
• Crackpot Palace: Stories (2012)
• A Natural History of Hell (2016)

Curiosities columns in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

Source: ^[6]

Non-Fiction

• Introduction to Carlos Hernandez's short story collection The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria, January 2016
• Introduction to Anna Tambour's short story collection, The Finest Ass in the Universe, Ticonderoga Publications, July 2015
• Introduction to the Clarion Class of 2012's short story anthology, The Red Volume, awkwardrobots.org, August 2014
• Introduction to Michael Cisco's novel, The Traitor, Cenitpede Press, 2012.
• Introduction to Ekaterina Sedia's short story collection, Moscow, But Dreaming, Prime Books, 2012.
• Introduction to John Langan's short story collection, The Wide Carnivorous Sky, Hippocampus Press, 2013.
• Introduction to David Herter's novel, October Dark, Earthling Books, November 2009.
• Introduction to Robert Wexler's novel, The Painting and the City, PS Publishing, UK, 2008.
• Essay on "The Metaphysics of Fiction Writing" included in end matter with story collection, The Drowned Life, 2008.
• Essay on "Anatomy of Sleep" by Shelley Jackson for online magazine, Heliotrope, Fall 2007.
• Essay "I Love a Mystery" for LitBlog Co-op site, May 4, 2006.
• Introduction to Richard Bowes' story collection, Streetcar Dreams, PS Publishing, UK, 2006.
• Essay on "Lull" by Kelly Link for online magazine Fantastic Metropolis, Jan. 1, 2005.
• Introduction to John Gardner's Grendel, Fantasy Masterworks Series #41, Gollancz, UK, 2004
• Introduction to Jeff VanderMeer's story collection, Secret Life, Golden Gryphon Press, 2004.
• Essay on "The Man Upstairs" by Ray Bradbury for Fantastic Metropolis, Dec. 27, 2004.
• Essay on "The Friends of the Friends" by Henry James for Fantastic Metropolis, Dec. 24, 2004.
• Essay on "The Hell Screen" by Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Fantastic Metropolis, Dec. 21, 2004.
• Introduction to Lucius Shepard's short novel, Floater, PS Publishing, UK, 2003.
• Curiosities Column, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, on The Other Side of the Mountain by Michel Bernanos, June 2000.
• Curiosities Column, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, on Katter Murr by E. T. A. Hoffmann, April 1999.

References

External links

• Official website
• Jeffrey Ford at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Golden Gryphon Press official site - About The Fantasy Writer's Assistant and Other Stories
• Golden Gryphon Press official site - About The Empire of Ice Cream
• Interview Interview for Actusf.com
• "The Physiognomy of Jeffrey Ford" Interview for SFcrowsnest.com