Andrew Porter

SS- Hi Andrew Porter! How are you doing?

AP – Pretty Good, you?

SS- Great! So can you tell me a little about your childhood?

AP – Well, I grew up in Lancaster Pennsylvania, and I was the youngest of three kids.

SS- Oh wow, do you still live there?

AP – No, I currently live in San Antonio where I am an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Trinity University.

SS – Oh wow! Is that your alma mauter?

AP – No actually, I graduated from Vassar with a B.A. in English then I went to the University of Houston for my M.F.A. for a year, but then I transferred to the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop for the second year.

SS- Why did you decide to transfer?

AP – Actually I had a girlfriend there at the time, and she loved it.

SS – Well, it seems that you are quite educated in writing, how many works have you published?

AP – Well, I have one book out currently called The Theory of Light and Matter.

SS- Oh is that the one that was read on NPR’s “Selected Shorts”?

AP – Yes, that was the one.

SS- Are there any fun facts you can tell us about the process of writing it?

AP- Well, I don’t know how “fun” of a fact this is, but when I was in the middle of writing it, I went out one day. When I returned my whole entire apartment had been cleaned out. Everything had been stolen, my TV, my clothes, including my laptop with all my stories in it, the back up disks and the brief case with the hard copies of my stories. They basically took everything I had ever written up until that point in my life, so I was left with nothing. After that for 2 or 3 years, I lost my love for writing. I moved to California and I was struggling to get by. I also lost my confidence to write. I couldn’t just sit down and write anymore, so much so, that I almost considered applying to law school. I still remember the day when I went into Borders and bought a book about the LSAT’s that was a really depressing day. But a few months later, I got a call from a college in Baltimore that wanted to interview me to be a visiting writer at the school, and I ended up getting the position. That really helped put me back on track.

SS- Oh no! That’s awful! Well obviously you finished it and everything worked out! I am aware that you have won many different awards for this book, can you name a few?

AP- Oh, haha well I have won a few, but two of the biggest were probably the 2007 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and was selected as one of the 100 Distinguished Stories of 2007 by Best American Short Stories.

SS- Those are both very prestigious awards! Congratulations! Our class recently read your story Hole, is there anything in your life that relates to this story?

AP- Not really, but I did have two older siblings, like the character Tal has an older brother.

SS- Interesting, as a kid, did you know you wanted to be a writer?

AP- Actually no, but I was very interested in the arts like visual art, and music. I actually used to write music in high school. And in college I wanted to be a filmmaker, it wasn’t until my junior year of college, when I took a fiction writing class that I thought about being a writer. I had a very kind professor who encouraged my writing, something nobody had ever done before. And as you can see, I followed my love of writing, and it has brought me here today.

SS- Awesome! Thank you so much for your time!

AP-Thanks!

Departure by Andrew Porter Reading

Discussion with Andrew Porter - Part 1 Part 2