Katherine Anne Porter (May 15, 1890 – September 18, 1980) was an American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, poet, and political activist.

"[5] The writer O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) was claimed as her father's second cousin,[6] but later research established that "except the accident of her name", there was no connection.

[10] Koontz, the son of a wealthy Texas ranching family, was physically abusive; once while drunk, he threw her down the stairs, breaking her ankle.

Prior to 1918, Porter was married to, then subsequently divorced from, T. Otto Taskett then Carl Clinton von Pless.

The year in New York City had a politically radicalizing effect on her; and in 1920, she went to work for a magazine publisher in Mexico, where she became acquainted with members of the Mexican leftist movement, including Diego Rivera.

(In his 1960s novel Providence Island, Calder Willingham had the character Jim fantasize a perfect lover and he called her Maria Concepcion Diaz.

An expanded edition of this collection was published in 1935 and received such critical acclaim that it alone virtually assured her place in American literature.

During the summer of 1926, Porter visited Connecticut with other writers and artists including Josephine Herbst, John Herrmann, and Ernest Stock, an English painter.

"[16] During the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, Porter enjoyed a prominent reputation as one of America's most distinguished writers, but her limited output and equally-limited sales had her living on grants and advances for most of the era.

[N 1] In 1941, during a stay at the artists' retreat Yaddo, Porter went on a ride through the rural area south of Saratoga Lake, where she found her future home in Malta.

Porter herself made two appearances on the radio series giving critical commentary on works by Rebecca West and Virginia Woolf.

Porter published her only novel, Ship of Fools, in 1962; it was based on her reminiscences of a 1931 ocean cruise that she had taken from Vera Cruz, Mexico, to Germany.

The novel's success finally gave her financial security (she reportedly sold the film rights for Ship of Fools for $500,000).

[24] In 1977, she published The Never-Ending Wrong, an account of the notorious trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, which she had protested 50 years earlier.

[25] Porter died in Silver Spring, Maryland, on September 18, 1980, at the age of 90, and her ashes were buried next to her mother at Indian Creek Cemetery in Texas.