She wrote primarily under the pen name Andre Norton, but also under Andrew North and Allen Weston.

Alice began writing at Collinwood High School in Cleveland, under the tutelage of Sylvia Cochrane.

She was the editor of a literary page in the school's paper, The Collinwood Spotlight, for which she wrote short stories.

[8] After graduating from high school in 1930, Norton planned to become a teacher, and began studying at Flora Stone Mather College of Western Reserve University.

[10] She was involved in a project related to alien citizenship which was abruptly terminated upon the American entry into World War II.

In 1941 she bought a bookstore called Mystery House in Mount Rainier, Maryland, the eastern neighbor of Washington, D.C.

Norton won a number of other genre awards and regularly had works appear in the Locus annual "best of year" polls.

Norton subsequently wrote Quag Keep, which involved a group of characters who travel from the real world to Greyhawk.

Besides Return to Quag Keep, Tor has published two more novels with Norton and Rabe credited as co-authors, Dragon Mage (November 2006) and Taste of Magic (January 2008).

She had a profound influence on the entire genre, having more than 300 published titles read by at least four generations of science fiction and fantasy readers and writers.

Notable authors who cite her influence include Greg Bear, Lois McMaster Bujold, C. J. Cherryh, Cecilia Dart-Thornton,[27] Tanya Huff,[28] Mercedes Lackey, Charles de Lint, Joan D. Vinge, David Weber, K. D. Wentworth, and Catherine Asaro.

On February 20, 2005, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, which had honored Norton with its Grand Master Award in 1984, announced the creation of the Andre Norton Award, to be given each year for an outstanding work of fantasy or science fiction for the young adult literature market, beginning with 2005 publications.

[34] The facility, named after one of the continents in Norton's Witch World series, was home to more than 10,000 texts, videos, and various other media.

Attached to the facility were three guest rooms, allowing authors and scholars the chance to stay on-site to facilitate their research goals.