Growing up, she spent most summers in her grandparents' town, Lemmon, South Dakota.
[1] 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.
[2] In 1974 she inherited her grandparents' farm in Lemmon, South Dakota, and moved there with her husband, poet David Dwyer.
In Lemmon, she joined Spencer Memorial Presbyterian church, and discovered the spirituality of the Great Plains.
[6] After the death of her husband in 2003, Norris transferred her place of residence back to Hawaii.