In Person

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On the same block as Katherine Anne Porter's childhood home is an establishment known as Hair by Mario. On the evening of Wednesday, September 27, as visitors from Austin and San Marcos angled their shiny cars into parking spaces a few blocks away from the newly inagurated Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center (the current neighbors had complained about parking along their street) and walked in the gathering dusk to a reading by Pulitzer Prize-winner Annie Proulx, few noticed the neon sign in Hair by Mario's front window: OPEN.

It was a fitting nod to the opening of the Literary Center. 508 Center Street in Kyle, Texas, was Porter's home from 1892 to 1902. The home has been lovingly restored, and a seminar space has been added and filled with books and glamorous portraits of Porter, après Kyle.

In his introduction, Jerome Supple, the president of Southwest Texas State University, spoke of the sense of place that infuses much good writing. Standing in Porter's childhood back yard, now covered with folding chairs, well-heeled literati, and tables of butter cookies, Supple waxed rhapsodic about Texas. The air was cool, the stars bright, and Supple paused a moment before allowing that Porter had spent much of her life "trying to get this place out of her writing."

Proulx prefaced her reading with an anecdote about her chosen home, Arvada, Wyoming. Proulx spoke of her local bar, which has lost its sign over the years and now has only three letters left: "THE." She opened a copy of her book, Close Range: Wyoming Stories, and explained that Buzz, the local bartender, had asked her to write a story about Arvada. She began to read her story "The Blood Bay," noting, "This story is for Buzz."

Proulx was a wonderful reader. The audience, which filled all the chairs and spilled into the street, drawing glances from local passersby, reveled in Proulx's adept Wyoming twang. When she finished reading "The Blood Bay," Proulx read a section of "The Mud Below," a story about rodeo riders. She explained that she wrote "The Mud Below" to answer a common question about bull riders: Why do they do it?

After the reading, Proulx signed books in Porter's old living room, and audience members sipped coffee and waited for a turn on the inviting porch swing. Porter, in an old photo, wearing a fabulous hat, gazed upon the proceedings. She seemed happy to have her old home open.