Kathleen Norris

writer, poet, essayist

Kathleen Norris is the award-winning poet, writer, and author of *The New York Times* bestsellers *The Cloister Walk*, *Dakota: A Spiritual Geography*, *Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith*, and *The Virgin of Bennington*. Exploring the spiritual life, her work has been described as at once intimate and historical, rich in poetry and meditations, brimming with exasperation and reverence, deeply grounded in both nature and spirit, sometimes funny, and often provocative. In her career Kathleen Norris has published seven books of poetry. Her first book of poems was entitled *Falling Off *and was the 1971 winner of the Big Table Younger Poets Award. Soon after, she settled down in her grandparents' home in Lemmon, South Dakota, where she lived with her husband, the poet David Dwyer, for over twenty-five years. The move was the inspiration for the first of her nonfiction books, the award-winning bestseller *Dakota: A Spiritual Geography*. It was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was selected as one of the best books of the year by Library Journal. Widowed in 2003, Kathleen Norris now divides her time between South Dakota and Honolulu, Hawaii, where she volunteers at her mother's retirement home, and also at an Episcopal church, where she cooks for a homeless shelter and helps teach a spirituality class for teenagers.