The Past
Anthony Peyton Porter left his hometown in the mid-eighties, settling first in Saint Paul, then absconding to Minneapolis, where reliable witnesses heard him muttering on Write On Radio!, Minnesota Public Radio, and Twin Cities Public Television. After fleeing Minnesota with his accomplices in 2003, he turned up in Chico, California, doing the same damn thing on KZFR, just like nothing had happened.
Defying public outcry, the Chico News & Review continues to publish “From the Edge.” A regular reader gushes, “I have rarely been this turned off by an author. In these few columns I have read of his, he has defiled teachers, children, and dogs.” (Mr. Porter has not defiled any dogs since the early ’90s and wishes certain people would get on with their lives.) David Hingsburger adds demurely, “Forgive me, but Anthony Peyton Porter is a total jerk.”
Mr. Porter has admitted responsibility for the quotations on the walls of the Clayton-Jackson-McGhie Memorial, at First Street and Second Avenue East in Duluth, Minnesota. Carla Stetson designed the memorial, and it’s a stunner. Go see it. That’s right, Duluth.
Jump at de Sun: The Story of Zora Neale Hurston, can still be found at Barnes & Noble, amazon.com, and poorly supervised children’s bookstores. A few copies of Can He Say That? are gathering dust at Lyon Books on the plaza in downtown Chico, Black Oak Books in Berkeley, and Carol’s Books in Sacramento.
Mr. Porter was once accused of poetry by people who claimed to know, but it all blew over and he seems fine now. He’s somehow still married to artist Janice Porter.
