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At the annual Western Literature Association Conference in Vancouver, October 1995, Katherine Anne Porter was the subject of two papers delivered in a panel on "Women of the Southwest," chaired by Janis Stout of Texas A & M University. Ann Parkhurst of the University of Nebraska spoke about "Betrayal, Loss, and Eternity in 'The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.'" Colleen M. Tremonte of Michigan State University gave a paper entitled "Katherine Anne Porter and the Present/Absent Frontier," in which she challenged limiting regional identifications of Porter's work by calling on Patricia Nelson Limerick's argument in The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West.

The 1996 Western American Literature Conference, to be held in Lincoln, Nebraska, will feature a panel of four Porter scholars under the heading "K. A. Porter: The West and Beyond." Janis Stout, Thomas Austenfeld (Drury College), Colleen Tremonte, and Chuck Etheridge (McMurry University) will present papers.

The question of Porter's Texas identity is of continuing interest to Porter scholars. While Porter cannot be labelled a "Western writer" without a great deal of explanatory comment, her prominence in these conferences expands opportunities for scholarship by placing her in new contexts: without a doubt, our readings of Porter differ when we compare her to Cather and Austin as opposed to O'Connor and Welty.