Porter Anderson is a career journalist and former diplomat whose news venues have included three of AT&T Time Warner’s CNN networks (CNN domestic, CNN International, and CNN.com); the Village Voice; Publishing Perspectives; The Bookseller; The FutureBook; Thought Catalog; the Dallas Times Herald; the Dallas Observer; D Magazine; the Tampa Tribune; the Sarasota Herald-Tribune; and other media.
He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives, a news medium focused on the international trade book publishing industry’s trends and issues, founded in 2009 by Frankfurt Book Fair New York.
Anderson has spoken and/or moderated events at Frankfurter Buchmesse’s The Markets conference, CONTEC, and Business Club, as well as at Frankfurt’s Singapore Publishing Symposium and StoryDrive Asia, The Next Chapter conference in Stockholm, Matera’s International Writing Conference in Italy, Berlin’s Publishers’ Forum, Madrid’s Readmagine, the International Publishers Association’s World Congress in New Delhi, London’s The FutureBook, Milan’s If Book Then, BookExpo, Writer’s Digest’s annual conferences and Digital Book World in New York City, and others, and for several years he has programmed events at Frankfurter Buchmesse’s Business Club, The Bookseller’s Author Day in London, Digital Book World’s independent author programming, the IDPF Digital Forum, and other events, while covering the industry’s trade shows, conferences, book fairs and special events, from Sharjah and Abu Dhabi to Athens and San Francisco.
Previously, Anderson served as Associate Editor with TheFutureBook.net—the UK industry’s community for digital development in publishing, a part of The Bookseller in London. Anderson is also a regular contributor to Writer Unboxed.
Anderson co-founded The Hot Sheet for authors with Jane Friedman, former publisher of Writer’s Digest and an instructor with The Great Courses. The Hot Sheet now is owned and operated by Friedman and is the essential publishing industry newsletter for authors, delivered every other Wednesday by email.
Anderson’s regular readers at Thought Catalog have read his Music for Writers series of columns, with interviews of some of the most talented, intelligent, and important composers and performers today on the contemporary classical scene.
Interviewees include John Luther Adams, Paola Prestini (also here), Michel van der Aa, Tristan Perich, Bryce Dessner, John Supko (also here), Christopher Cerrone, The Kronos Quartet’s David Harrington, Donnacha Dennehy, Andrew Norman, Kaija Saariaho, Kate Dillingham, Ville Matvejeff, Gregory W. Brown, Laura Karpman, Lisa Bielawa, Joby Talbot, Brad Lubman, Maki Namekawa, Jeffrey Zeigler, Agata Zubel, David Krakauer, The JACK Quartet’s John Pickford Richards, The Royal String Quartet’s Michal Pepol, ETHEL’s Ralph Farris, Anna Clyne, Caleb Burhans, and more. #MusicForWriters is produced in cooperation with New York Public Radio’s 24-hour stream, Q2 Music.
Anderson’s work over more than three decades in newspapers, news magazines, network news television, international humanitarianism, and online network news have included the roles of critic, reporter, editor, managing editor, news anchor, content coordinator, multimedia producer, diplomat. and senior producer. A Fellow with the National Critics Institute, Anderson has professionally reviewed books, theater, dance, music, and visual arts for several mainstream media for three decades.
Anderson has held a United Nations P5 diplomatic posting (with laissez-passer) to Rome as Creative Advisor and Multi-Media Manager to the UN’s World Food Programme. And he has served as Creative Consultant and Executive Producer to INDEX: Design to Improve Life, the Danish government’s awards program for international humanitarian design in Copenhagen under the royal patronage of HRH Frederik, Prince of Denmark.
Prior to becoming a journalist, Anderson worked as an Equity actor and as an account executive with Siegerman Associates, Inc., in public relations and advertising. His play script, Bernard Shaw: Weeding the Garden, was based on the religious writings of George Bernard Shaw. It was entered into the permanent Shaw Archives by Dan Laurence. Anderson was granted a limited-time performance license for the piece by the Shaw Estate via the Society of Authors in London.
Anderson holds a BA (William and Mary), an MA (University of Michigan), and an MFA (Florida State University Asolo Conservatory). He has done special readings in the psychology of the arts at the University of Bath, England. In his 2011 Atlantic Center for the Arts (ACA) residency, Anderson worked with Master Artist and novelist Victoria Redel of Sarah Lawrence College.
He is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, American Men’s Studies Association, the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, the American Theatre Critics Association (former executive committee member) and the International Association of Theatre Critics (former vice president).
Anderson is a native of Charleston, South Carolina. He is a longtime supporter of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). As part of his interest in the potential impact of serious music and writing on each other, he made the first challenge grant to listeners of New Sounds (formerly Q2 Music), the 24/7 live-streaming contemporary classical Internet service of New York Public Radio flagship WNYC/WQXR.
Porter Anderson’s dream sponsor is Campari.
