Ford published his first novel, "A Piece of My Heart", the story of two unlikely drifters whose paths cross on an island in the Mississippi River, during 1976, and followed it with "The Ultimate Good Luck" during 1981. During the interim he briefly taught at Williams College and Princeton University. Despite good notices the books sold little, and Ford retired from fiction writing to become a writer for the New York magazine "Inside Sports". "I realized," Ford said, "there was probably a wide gulf between what I could do and what would succeed with readers. I felt that I'd had a chance to write two novels, and neither of them had really created much stir, so maybe I should find real employment, and earn my keep."