Andrew Porter grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the youngest of three children. He received his B.A. in English from Vassar College and an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He is the author of the short story collection, The Theory of Light and Matter, which won the 2007 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, was published in hardcover in Fall 2008, and will be republished in paperback by Vintage/Knopf in Spring 2010. Foreign editions of The Theory of Light and Matter will also be published in both the UK and Australia, and in translation in France and The Netherlands. In addition to winning the Flannery O’Connor Award, The Theory of Light and Matter also received Foreword Magazine’s 2008 “Book of the Year” Award for Short Fiction, was a finalist for both The Steven Turner Award and The Paterson Prize, was longlisted for The Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and was selected by both The Kansas City Star and The San Antonio Express-News as one of the “Best Books of 2008.” Porter has also received numerous fellowships and awards for his work, including the 2004 W.K. Rose Fellowship in the Creative Arts from Vassar College, a James Michener-Paul Engle Fellowship from the James Michener/Copernicus Foundation, an Iowa Teaching/Writing Fellowship from the University of Iowa, a Tennesee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee’ Writers’ Conference, a Residency Fellowship from the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, an Artist Foundation of San Antonio Award, the Glenna Luschei Award and a Pushcart Prize. His fiction has appeared in One Story, Epoch, The Ontario Review, Prairie Schooner, The Antioch Review, StoryQuarterly, The Threepenny Review, Others Voices, Story and The Pushcart Prize Anthology, among others. He has also had his work read on NPR’s “Selected Shorts” and selected as one of the 100 Distinguished Stories of 2007 by Best American Short Stories. Currently, Porter lives in San Antonio, where he is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Trinity University.