John Norton (July 4, 1936 – August 9, 2015) is an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

and

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent ...

writer.

Life

John Norton graduated from

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private university, private Catholic Jesuits, Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1863 by the Society of Jesus, a Catholic Religious order (Catholic), religious order, t ...

and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

with an M.A. and Ph.D. He taught at the

University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Riverside, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of Cali ...

. John moved to San Francisco in the 1970s and soon afterward joined Robert Gluck's Writing Workshop at

Small Press Traffic Small means of insignificant size. Small may also refer to: Science and technology * SMALL, an ALGOL-like programming language * ''Small'' (journal), a nano-science publication * <small>, an HTML element that defines smaller text Arts and ...

. His poems and stories began to appear in a variety of small magazines and literary journals, including ''America,'' ''New American Writing,'' ''CrossConnect,'' ''Kayak'', ''Oxygen'', ''Beatitude'', ''Blue Unicorn'', ''Onthebus'', and ''Processed World''. John served as board president of

Literary Arts Center and the Irish Arts Foundation. He helped organize the Crossroads Irish American Festival. He read from his work in San Francisco, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Riverside, Rochester, and Toulouse, France. John lived in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, and worked in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

as a technical writer and editor. John was married to artist Anne Subercaseaux in San Francisco, previously partners for 17 years. He was born on July 4, 1936, in Boston and died on August 9, 2015, in San Francisco.

Awards

American Book Award The American Book Awards are an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "t ...

Works

* ''Air Transmigra'' (San Francisco: Ithuriel's Spear) August 2010. * ''Re:Marriage'' (San Francisco: Black Star Series) 2000. * ''The Light at the End of the Bog'', (San Francisco: Black Star Series) 1989, 1992 * ''Posthum(or)ous'' (San Francisco: e. g. press) 1985 (chapbook)

Anthologies

* ''Beatitude 1959-2009 Golden Anniversary Anthology'', (America's Press, 2010) * ''The Before Columbus Poetry Anthology: Selections from the American Book Awards 1980-1990'', (W.W. Norton & Company, 1991)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Norton, John American male poets University of Pennsylvania alumni Living people American Book Award winners Year of birth missing (living people)