Andrew Porter, author of THE IMAGINED LIFE

04/21/25 • 55 min

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Andrew Porter is the author of two story collections, The Disappeared and The Theory of Light and Matter. He’s also the author of the novel In Between Days. His latest, out this month, is The Imagined Life and it treads on some familiar territory as the others. Andrew joins Marrie Stone to talk about it.

His work has been compared to Richard Yates and John Cheever. He talks about those influences and his hyper-focus on the domestic realm. He also talks about the impacts his former professor, Marilynne Robinson, has on his work. They talk about writerly choices — point of view, structure, revision, and character development. And they discuss larger themes of men, boys, marriage, and sexuality in today’s culture and how literature reflects those struggles.

For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds of past interviews on our website. You’ll help out the show and indie bookstores by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. It’s stocked with titles by our guest authors, as well as our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners!

(Recorded on April 16, 2025)

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

(Recorded on April 16, 2025)

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

Previous Episode

Tova Mirvis, author of WE WOULD NEVER

Tova Mirvis is the author of the memoir The Book of Separation as well as three novels, Visible City, The Outside World and The Ladies Auxiliary, a national bestseller. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe Magazine and Real Simple, and her fiction has been broadcast on NPR. She lives in Newton, MA with her family. Her most recent novel is We Would Never.

Tova joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about how the idea for her new book came from a case she followed in the media, the challenges of writing her first thriller, turning real people into fictional characters, writing multiple point of views, pacing, at what point she thinks about the reader, and more.

(Recorded on February 28, 2025)

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

Next Episode

Jennifer Haigh, author of RABBIT MOON

Jennifer Haigh’s first novel, Mrs. Kimble, won the PEN Hemingway Award for debut fiction. Mercy Street, was named a Best Book of 2022 by The New Yorker and won the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. Her short stories have been published widely, in the Atlantic, Granta, The Best American Short Stories, and many other places. Published in eighteen languages, her work has been recognized by the Guggenheim Foundation, the Michener Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Boston. Her new novel, Rabbit Moon, is the focus of our talk today.

Jennifer joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett. They talk about her time in Shanghai and how being there inspired the novel, why she wrote a novel about sisters, writing multiple points of view, writing minor characters, what she reads when she’s writing fiction, how much she knows going in, why she doesn’t plot, and more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds of past interviews on our website. You can help out the show and indie bookstores by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. It’s stocked with titles by our guest authors, as well as our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. It’s perfect for writing. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners!

(Recorded on April 4, 2025)

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)