O. Henry (1862-1910) O. Henry is a famous American short story writer. O. Henry’s real name was William Sydney Porter, and he was born in Greensboro, North Carolina on September 11, 1862. His sister, Evelyn, nurtured his gift for storytelling by developing a game in which she would begin to tell a story and he would finish it. At 20 (1882), he moved to Texas, where he had various jobs. He worked as a ranch hand, a bank teller, a writer and publisher of a humor magazine, and a reporter at the