Harriet And The Piper

Kathleen Norris was born in Washington D.C. on July 27 1947. As a child Norris moved to Hawaii with her parents John Norris and Lois Totten and in 1965 graduated from Punahou Preparatory School. Growing up she spent most summers in her grandparents town Lemmon South Dakota. After graduating from Bennington College in Vermont in 1969 Norris became arts administrator of the Academy of American Poets and published her first book of poetry two years later. In 1974 she inherited her grandparents farm in Lemmon South Dakota and moved there with her husband David Dwyer. In Lemmon she joined Spencer Memorial Presbyterian church and discovered the spirituality of the Great Plains. In 1986 Norris started writing non-fiction after becoming a Benedictine oblate at Assumption Abbey in Richardton North Dakota and spending extended periods at Saint Johns Abbey in Collegeville Minnesota. At this period in her career one of her focuses was death and depression. After the death of her husband in 2003 Norris transferred her place of residence back to Hawaii.