 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 grandparent's 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.