Author draws on her Visalia roots
Jane Porter sprinkles Valley references throughout her newest book.
by Guy Keeler / The Fresno Bee

As seen in The Fresno Bee (must be a member).

Novelist Jane Porter had to leave the central San Joaquin Valley to find her voice as a writer.

But she loves coming home and will do so both in person and in print next week, when she appears in Visalia and Fresno to autograph copies of her new book, "The Frog Prince."

In contrast to her romance novels written for Harlequin, Porter's newest work from Warner Books ($12.95) is aimed at fans of modern chick lit, a genre focusing on female protagonists learning about life and themselves. The book also has a strong Central California flavor as heroine Holly Bishop finds strength in her Valley roots while forging a new life in San Francisco.

"Every writer has a sense of home," says Porter. "For me, it's always been the Valley."

Porter, who lives in Seattle, was born in Visalia in 1964 and grew up there. She graduated from Redwood High School and, like many Valley natives, went away to college.

"When I was at UCLA, everybody made fun of the Valley," she says. "The heat, the fog and open spaces. I had to tell people, 'I love being from this place.'"

The magnetic energy that drew Porter to Los Angeles never completely captured her heart. She switched majors from theater arts to American studies but knew, deep down, she was born for something else.

"Early on, in college, I wanted to write," she says.

While at UCLA, Porter began a 15-year apprenticeship under a demanding taskmaster — the school of personal experience. She poured her soul into writing romance novels, only to see book after book rejected.

After graduating from UCLA, Porter worked at jobs in sales and marketing and was director of a nonprofit foundation. She came back to the Valley, earned a masters degree in writing at the University of San Francisco and taught English to seventh- and eighth-graders at St. Helen's School in Fresno before moving to the Pacific Northwest. Through it all, she never abandoned her dream of becoming a writer.

Five years ago, Porter's hard work and persistence finally paid off when Harlequin Presents accepted "The Italian Groom." Since then, she has written 19 romance and chick-lit novels, all published.

Porter returns to the Valley at least twice a year to visit family and friends. She loves the Valley's unpretentious beauty but hesitates to make Central California her permanent home. People and places change over the years, she says, and sometimes nostalgia for the past gets trampled by the relentless march of time.

Porter's father, the late S. Thomas Porter, taught political science at College of the Sequoias for 19 years and was mayor of Visalia from 1973 to 1977. He died at age 44 in 1979, an event that turned his daughter's hometown into a place of bittersweet memories.

"We change as we grow," says Porter. "Writing really changed me, and I find there is something in me now that needs more conflict than what I would get in a smaller place."

Although Porter finds living in a large city such as Seattle more stimulating from a creative standpoint, she maintains a fondness for her Valley roots.

"I tried to move back to the Valley three different times," she says. "It was my childhood home. But, with my father gone, I found I couldn't re-create that home again on my own."

"The Frog Prince," though set in San Francisco, is sprinkled with references to real places and people in Fresno and Visalia. But the most striking aspect of the story is the sense of inferiority that Porter's protagonist, Holly Bishop, carries with her from Visalia to the Bay Area.

So why do people think they have to apologize for being from the Valley? Porter blames cultural elitism, which worships wealth, power and prestige.

"I saw it at UCLA," she says. "There was a girl from Lindsay in a sorority. She was beautiful, a former Orange Blossom Festival queen. But the other girls laughed at her because they had never heard of Lindsay."

Porter says people who belittle the Valley have not taken the time to find out what makes it rich, such as its simple values and sense of community.

"The Valley is sandwiched between two glamorous cities," she says.

"People overlook it because they only see it as a way to get from San Francisco to Los Angeles."

Porter has many fans in the Valley, among them Caroline Kearney, her sixth-grade teacher at Conyer Elementary School in Visalia. Kearney never misses a book signing hosted by her former student.

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