Katherine Anne Porter

Katherine Anne Porter was born Callie Russel Porter on May 15, 1890 in Indian Creek, Texas. Porter’s mother, Mary Alice Porter, died when she was very young, and her father, Harrison Boone Porter, Katherine, and her four siblings moved in with their grandmother, Catherine Ann Porter, in Kyle, Texas. Porter would eventually assume her grandmother’s name as a sign of the great influence she had on her upbringing. Porter attended public school but received no formal education after her early teenage years. In 1915, Porter and her abusive husband divorced. Porter spent time working in Chicago as a movie extra before moving back to Texas to work as an actress and singer. Later that year, Porter was diagnosed with tuberculosis (later amended to bronchitis) and was institutionalized for two years. It was during this time that she decided to become a writer. Following her release from the hospital, Porter worked as a drama critic and gossip columnist (like Miranda and Towney in “Pale Horse, Pale Rider”). In 1918, while working for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, she fell ill with influenza and nearly died. After this, she worked as a ghost writer of children’s literature in New York City and a magazine editor in Mexico, where she met Diego Rivera and other members of the Mexican leftist movement. Porter moved between New York and Mexico for the next decade, during which time that she began to publish short stories and essays. Porter became an elected member of National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1943, and she served as a writer in residence at the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, and the University of Virginia. In addition to this, she taught at Stanford University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Texas.  Though she is better known for her short stories, Porter did publish a successful novel, Ship of Fools, in 1962. She died in 1980 after a vast and accomplished life.