Breaking Out: Evan S. Porter

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We first connected with Evan S. Porter during his debut novel's publication and featured him in our May/June 2024's Breaking In column. Now that his next publication has hit shelves, we're reconnecting with him for a quick Q&A.

I pitched the kernel of the idea that would become A Last Time for Everything to my agent in late 2022, almost two full years before my debut came out! We sold it to my publisher on proposal, and, from there, there were a lot of fits and starts along the way when I started actually writing the full manuscript. We wrapped up the final developmental edits in late 2025, so it was a pretty clean three years of hard work. Wow!

Massively. Debut authors are exciting in publishing because they are unknown quantities that have untold potential. It works the other way, too—as a first-timer, you go in with realistic expectations but of course you’re aware of the possibility that everything will fall just right, you’ll get all the breaks, and you’ll end up on the bestseller lists with your life changed forever. So, I remember feeling really anxious and wanting to control everything I could along the way.

Naturally, you find out that you don’t control all that much, and the book mostly has to go out there and stand on its own legs. I think that’s the mindset I tried to adopt this time around. It’s out there now and I’m just hoping it finds its people. Having that perspective really makes things less stressful.

The themes that started to emerge in later drafts. The book is light and silly and funny but I didn’t want it to be all empty calories. Discovering why the story was relevant and urgent at this time in the world was really satisfying. I’ll let the book do the talking, but I’ll say that the characters of Arthur and Wren wound up being a great way for me to explore all the ways in which parenting, growing up, and the world-at-large have changed since our parents’ generation.

I’m proud of a lot of the prose in this novel. My first book was written in first-person, the main character being kind of a normal guy, an everyday dad. So, it was a little harder to flex my writing chops while being in his head and voice. A Last Time for Everything is written in third person, and I had so much fun with the possibilities that opened up for me. In particular, I love finding ways to interject humor and jokes into the impartial narrator’s descriptions of things. There were so many more opportunities for humor there than I thought there would be.

I probably would go back and be a lot kinder to myself while I was in the writing grind. Writing a book and managing an author career while working full-time and raising kids is not easy. I beat myself up a lot for not writing faster, being more productive, writing better drafts. It’d be nice to go back and give myself a hug or something.

I think a lot about why we do this, something that is admittedly so difficult, grueling, and even painful. I love writing, but I don’t like it, and yet I must. It sounds like a bad fortune cookie but it’s really the truth! Almost every writer I know has a bunch of crazy tricks, hacks, and routines to trick or even force themselves into writing—the thing that is supposedly their great passion.

Try to separate yourself from the outcome and find joy in the actual making. Even as hard and disheartening as it can be, most of us would probably wake up again tomorrow and write something new even if we knew it would go nowhere. Just try to remember that when things are hard.

I’ve always felt my books, stories, and writing are really well-suited for film. In fact, my debut, Dad Camp, is in active development by Netflix with Happy Madison and 21 Laps producing. Right now, I’m working on an original screenplay of my own in the adult comedy space. My dream is to have a career that allows me to live in both the literary and film worlds.

The best places to find me are at my website (WordsByEvanPorter.com) or on Instagram (Instagram.com/wordsbyevanporter).