At various times she has instructed adult illiterates in a maximum security prison, taught in a Greek orphanage and in a Japanese convent school, written and edited corporate publications for Raytheon, worked as a career consultant, a commercial speed-reading instructor, and as a senior technical writer, and she has taught English at colleges and universities in four states. 

First published at age 11, Norris has been a poet "on the side" for almost her entire life.  Her work appeared in the first issue of the Northwestern University Tri-Quarterly and in Entelechy, Moments in Time, The Children's Hour, as well as in all three Knoxville Writers' Guild anthologies; in 1987 she won a poetry award from the National League of American Pen Women.

In May 2001 her first book, A Small Price to Pay: Poems from East Tennessee and Beyond, is being published and is available at www.abebooks.com.