Andrew Porter on Writing to Discover

Welcome to I’m a Writer But, where writers discuss their work, their lives, their other work, the stuff that takes up any free time they have, all the stuff they’re not able to get to, and the ways in which any of us get anything done. Plus: book recommendations, bad jokes, okay jokes, despair, joy, and anything else going on that week. Hosted by Lindsay Hunter.    

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Andrew Porter discusses his new collection, The Disappeared, how his process changes depending on what he’s working on, trying to hold a novel in his head all at once as he’s drafting, moving from writing stories to writing a novel and back again, when and how he thinks about structure, and more!

From the episode:

Andrew Porter: My process varies depending on the story. I don’t have, necessarily, a set process. I’ve always written by instinct, and my stories have always grown out of images–usually they’re images from my life. I start there, and I feel like there’s something in an image or a memory that has a story behind it. And I begin writing in an attempt to discover why I’m feeling drawn to that image, or why it’s been haunting me, or why it’s stayed with me. And usually, a story emerges.

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Andrew Porter is the author of the story collections The Disappeared and The Theory of Light and Matter, and the novel In Between Days. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has received a Pushcart Prize, a James Michener/Copernicus Fellowship, and the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. His work has appeared in One Story, The Threepenny Review, and Ploughshares, and on public radio’s Selected Shorts. Currently, he teaches fiction writing and directs the creative writing program at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.