KA
Meet the Author

Katherine Anne Porter

American · 1890–1980 · Short-story writer and novelist

A master of the short story whose precise, unsentimental prose follows memory, pride, and loss.

1 StoryBites Edition1 Short story
Start with The Jilting of Granny Weatherall → Browse the editions

Why read Katherine Anne Porter?

Porter wrote relatively little, but her stories are finely made and emotionally exact. She follows characters, often women, through their memories and self-deceptions without ever explaining too much. Read her to see how much a short story can hold.

A life in six dates

  1. 1890Born in Indian Creek, Texas
  2. 1920sSpends extended periods in Mexico
  3. 1929Publishes The Jilting of Granny Weatherall
  4. 1930Flowering Judas
  5. 1939Pale Horse, Pale Rider
  6. 1962Ship of Fools
  7. 1966Collected Stories wins the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award
  8. 1980Dies in Silver Spring, Maryland

Themes across the work

American literatureModernismPsychological fiction

The StoryBites Editions

Context that actually matters

Southern literatureHer Texas childhood and family memories supply many of her best stories.
ModernismShe used interior monologue and shifting time to follow the workings of memory.
MexicoHer years there, during a time of revolution, inspired several of her stories.

Influence

Echoes of Katherine Anne Porter run through Eudora Welty, among many others.