The independent lives of stories

It never fails to thrill, I think, stumbling upon strangers reading your work. Here's the Writers' Community of Ball State University, a jolly bunch who seem not only to write but get together to read other people's writing to each other, and here's an item recorded for one of their recent meetings:

JoyAnn Hirschy read a story by Elizabeth Baines, called "Compass and Torch."

I don't know about others, but on occasions like this, finding something I wrote operating like this in a situation I hadn't guessed about, and in lives that are unknown to me, I'm struck by how far it now has a life of its own.

Wonder if she read it from the collection, or if it was downloaded from the internet?