The Spew

by Jeffrey Ford

A man is hired to transcribe the words of a mysterious woman who speaks in "spews" during self-induced trances, but he soon discovers an intriguing story coalescing within her seemingly incoherent rambles.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories

24 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 21, 2026

About the author

Jeffrey Ford 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 the State University of New York at Binghamton, where he studied with the novelist John Gardner.

He lives in southern New Jersey and teaches writing and literature at Brookdale Community College in Monmouth County. He has also taught at the summer Clarion Workshop for science fiction and fantasy writers in Michigan. He has contributed stories, essays and interviews to various magazines and e-magazines including MSS, Puerto Del Sol, Northwest Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Argosy, Event Horizon, Infinity Plus, Black Gate and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

He published his first story, "The Casket", in Gardner's literary magazine MSS in 1981 and his first full-length novel, Vanitas, in 1988.

Reviews

[Per · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://reactormag.com/the-spew-jeffr...

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dazzlingly weird

>> Jeffrey Ford’s excellent new story is about a mysterious woman who hires a recently unemployed man to record her dictated speech. That’s an inadequate summary of a plot that contains subtle strangeness and fantastical details.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the idea of this was cool, and the actual "spews" when they were written out were kind of interesting, but for most of the story they're just summarized and the actual plot wasn't that exciting.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

Very strange, but I dug it. Weird, and multilayered.

[Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good

[Beth Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love speculative fiction. Why are we given what we're given? Why are seemingly important details left out? What just happened? No! Come back, I need more!