Porter's short stories include "Maria Concepcion," which was published in 1922, "The Martyr" (1923), "Virgin Violeta" (1924), "He" (1927), "Magic" (1928), "Rope" (1928), "Theft" (1929) and "Flowering Judas" (1929).
Her stories published in the 1930s are "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" (1930), "The Cracked Looking Glass" (1932), "That Tree" (1934), "Hacienda" (1934), "The Grave" (1934), "Old Mortality" (1937), "Noon Wine" (1937), "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" (1939) and "The Downward Path to Wisdom" (1939).
In the 1940s, Porter published "The Leaning Tower" (1941), "The Source" (1944), "The Journey" (1944), "The Witness" (1944), "The Circus" (1944), "The Last Leaf" (1944) and "A Day's Work" (1944).
Finally, her short stories published in the 1960s were "The Fig Tree" (1960), "Holiday" (1960) and "A Christmas Story" (1967).
Porter's works tend to encompass the darker side of humanity, reality and existence. Her stories deal with betrayal, women's sexuality, social and environmental injustice and death, and they include a large amount of religious symbolism. Her aim was to be both objective and sensitive, and her prose is clear and vibrant. A deep-rooted sense of personal and family history is also reflected. Her tone is described as ironic, though not humorless -- a consistent pattern in her story themes.
Her first book, "Flowering Judas and Other Stories," is a collection of her 12 earliest stories. It was published in 1930 by Harcourt Brace. In 1939, she published "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," which included three stories that were considered short novels due to their length. Her third anthology, "The Leaning Tower and Other Stories," was published in 1944, and "The Old Order: Stories of the South" in 1955. Finally, in 1965, she published the comprehensive "The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter," for which, as mentioned, she won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award.
Porter's stories were written during a grim time for many people (the aftermath of World War I and through the duration of World War II) with a desire to "tell the truth," and perhaps search for meaning in human life. Today, her short stories are valued for the mastery and artistry with which they are told, their richness of design and wide range of emotion, and they are respected as nearly unequaled.