Howard Norman

Norman was born in Toledo, Ohio. His parents were Russian-Polish-Jewish; they met in a Jewish orphanage.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} The family moved several times, and Norman attended four different elementary schools, including in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His mother watched other children while his father was away most of the time. He is one of three brothers.{{cite journal|last=Huppért|first=Margaritte |author2=Don Lee |title=About Howard Norman: A Profile |journal=Ploughshares|publisher=Emerson College|url=http://www.pshares.org/issues/article.cfm?prmarticleid=4377|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080220121724/http://www.pshares.org/issues/article.cfm?prmArticleID=4377 |archive-date=2008-02-20}}

After dropping out of high school, Norman moved to Toronto. Working in Manitoba on a fire crew with Cree Indians, Norman became fascinated with their folkstories and culture. He spent the next 16 years living and writing in Canada, including the Hudson Bay area and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. During this time, he received his high school equivalency diploma, and studied later at Western Michigan University Honors College{{cite news|url=http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/booksellers/press_release/norman/|title=Press Release|publisher=houghtonmifflinbooks.com|access-date=2009-01-25}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20160303185919/https://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/booksellers/press_release/norman/ (archived version)] where he received Bachelor of Arts degrees in zoology and English{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} in 1972.{{cite web|url=http://www.wmich.edu/alumni/awards/distinguished-alumni/recipients/2000-2009/norman.html|title=2001 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient |publisher=wmich.edu|access-date=2009-01-23}} In 1974, he earned a Master of Arts degree from the Folklore Institute of Indiana University linguistics and folklore; his Masters thesis was entitled, Fatal Incidents of Unrequited Love in Folktales Around the World.

For the next three years, he participated in the Michigan Society of Fellows;{{cite web|url=http://www.rackham.umich.edu/faculty_staff/sof/|title=The Michigan Society of Fellows|publisher=rackham.umich.edu|access-date=2009-01-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090117074946/http://www.rackham.umich.edu/faculty_staff/sof/|archive-date=2009-01-17|url-status=dead}} The Cree personal name was published in 1977.{{cite book|title=The Cree personal name|last=Norman|first=Howard A |publisher=worldcat.org|oclc = 184855188}} Shortly after, his father died in 1996, who Norman had not seen in 20 years.

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;Writer

Norman has been a prolific writer in a variety of styles. How Glooskap Outwits the Ice Giants, The owl-scatterer, and Between heaven and earth are written for juvenile audiences. His books on Canadian folklore include The wishing bone cycle (Cree), Who met the ice lynx (Cree), Who-Paddled-Backward-With-Trout (Cree), The girl who dreamed only geese (Inuit) Trickster and the fainting birds (Algonquin), and Northern tales (Eskimo). Northern Tales, translated into Italian and Japanese, was Norman's first book translated into a foreign language.{{cite web|url=http://lopezbooks.com/articles/norman.html|title=Collecting Howard Norman|last=Lopez |first=Ken |year=1998|publisher=lopezbooks.com|access-date=2009-01-24}} In Fond Remembrance of Me is not only an English translation of Noah and the Ark stories as told by a Manitoba Inuk elder, it is also a memoir of the friendship that Norman kindles with Helen Tanizaki, a writer who is translating these same stories into Japanese before her death.

Norman describes The Bird Artist, a novel, as his most conservative book structurally, though not psychologically.{{cite web|url=http://www.wmich.edu/thirdcoast/Interviews/Norman_Geye.html|year=2004|title=An Interview with Howard Norman|publisher=wmich.edu|access-date=2009-01-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070811105450/http://www.wmich.edu/thirdcoast/Interviews/Norman_Geye.html |archive-date=2007-08-11}} Time magazine named The Bird Artist one of its Best Five Books for 1994. It also was awarded the New England Booksellers Association Prize in Fiction, and Norman received a Lannan Literary Award for this book.{{cite web|url=http://www.answers.com/topic/howard-norman|title=Howard Norman|publisher=answers.com|access-date=2009-01-23}} The Bird Artist and The Northern Lights were finalists for the National Book Award. The Northern Lights was completed with assistance from the Whiting Award. He received the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets for The Wishing Bone Cycle.{{cite journal|date=September 8, 2005|title=Howard Norman|journal=Ploughshares|publisher=Emerson College|url=http://www.pshares.org/authors/authordetails.cfm?prmAuthorID=1125|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091115094330/http://www.pshares.org/authors/authorDetails.cfm?prmAuthorID=1125 |archive-date=2009-11-15}} In On the trail of a ghost, an article published by National Geographic, Norman writes about Japan's haiku master, Matsuo Bashō's 1200-mile walk in 1689, and the journey's epic log, entitled Oku no Hosomichi.{{cite journal|last=Norman|first=Howard |date=February 2008|title=Basho|journal=National Geographic|url=http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/02/bashos-trail/howard-norman-text/1|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080327063220/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/02/bashos-trail/howard-norman-text/1|url-status=dead|archive-date=March 27, 2008}} His book, My Famous Evening: Nova Scotia Sojourns, Diaries & Preoccupations was published under National Geographic's "Directions" travel series. It includes a chapter on the Nova Scotia poet Elizabeth Bishop.

There are also several early books published in small numbers. These include: The Woe Shirt, Arrives Without Dogs, and Bay of Fundy Journal, amongst others.

;Teacher

In 1999, Norman taught at Middlebury College in Vermont.{{cite web|url=http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/blwc/faculty/99fac.htm|title=1999 Faculty|publisher=middlebury.edu|access-date=2009-01-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091019073217/http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/blwc/faculty/99fac.htm |archive-date=2009-10-19}}

Norman became Goucher College's Writer in Residence in 2003. In 2006, he was appointed a Marsh professor at University of Vermont.{{cite web|url=http://www.uvm.edu/artsandsciences/forfaculty/marsh_profs/?Page=profs_at_large/norman_howard.html|title=Howard Norman|publisher=uvm.edu|access-date=2009-01-23}} Norman now teaches creative writing in the Masters of Fine Arts program at the University of Maryland, College Park.

;Professional affiliations

Norman has contributed to book review periodicals (The New York Times Book Review; Los Angeles Times Book Review; National Geographic Traveler), participated on literary journals' editorial staff (Conjunctions: Ploughshares), and been a member of the board of directors for PEN New York and PEN/Faulkner group, Washington, D.C.

Norman met poet Jane Shore in 1981, and they married in 1984.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} They have a daughter, Emma.

Norman and Shore lived in Cambridge, New Jersey, Oahu, and Vermont, before settling into homes in Chevy Chase, Maryland near Washington, D.C. during the school year, and East Calais, Vermont{{cite news|url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8294042.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121023011946/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8294042.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 23, 2012|title=The Bird man of east Calais, Vt. Novelist Howard Norman hatches ideas in his mountain home |last=Doten|first=Patti Doten|date=August 30, 1994|publisher=The Boston Globe|access-date=2009-01-23}} in the summertime.{{cite journal|date=Spring 2001|title=Jane Shore|journal=Poetry Quarterly|publisher=washingtonart.com|volume=2|issue=2|url=http://washingtonart.com/beltway/shore.html}}{{cite journal|last=Norman|first=Howard|date=Fall 2003|title=Guest Editor's Note|journal=Conjunctions|volume=41|url=http://www.conjunctions.com/archives/c41-hn.htm|access-date=2009-01-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080515061558/http://www.conjunctions.com/archives/c41-hn.htm|archive-date=2008-05-15|url-status=dead}} Their friend, the author David Mamet, Shore's Goddard College classmate, lives nearby.{{cite web|url=http://www.newenglandfilm.com/news/archives/98october/laletter.htm|title=The Ups, Downs and Up Again of the Book Deal|last=Goldstein|first=M.M.|date=October 1, 1998|publisher=newenglandfilm.com|access-date=2009-01-23|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100211095049/http://newenglandfilm.com/news/archives/98october/laletter.htm|archive-date=February 11, 2010}}

During the summer of 2003, poet Reetika Vazirani was housesitting the Norman's Chevy Chase home. There, on July 16, she killed her young son before committing suicide.{{cite web|url=http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=194&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0|title=Senseless tragedy strikes the American poetry scene|date=December 5, 2004|publisher=chicagopoetry.com|access-date=2009-01-23|archive-date=2011-10-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111001125836/http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=194&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0|url-status=dead}}{{cite news|url=http://media.www.signal-online.net/media/storage/paper771/news/2003/09/09/Features/A.Loss.For.Words.Reetika.Vazirani.Poet.And.Professor.Commits.Suicide.At.40-1176103.shtml|title=A loss for words: Reetika Vazirani, poet and professor, commits suicide at 40|last=Fiore|first=Kristina|date=September 9, 2003|publisher=The Signal|access-date=2009-01-23|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080616225456/http://media.www.signal-online.net/media/storage/paper771/news/2003/09/09/Features/A.Loss.For.Words.Reetika.Vazirani.Poet.And.Professor.Commits.Suicide.At.40-1176103.shtml|archive-date=June 16, 2008}}

Howard Norman's [https://swco.ttu.edu/Sowell/HowardNorman.php papers] are housed in the [https://swco.ttu.edu/Sowell/SowellCollectionSWC.php Sowell Collection] in the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library of Texas Tech University.

• Guggenheim Fellowship
• National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships (x3)
• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship{{cite web|url=http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/catalog/productinfo.aspx?id=674027&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1|title=Northern Tales|publisher=nebraskapress.unl.edu|access-date=2009-01-23}}
• 2001, Distinguished Alumni Award, Western Michigan University
• 1996, Lannan Literary Award for Fiction{{cite web|url=http://www.lannan.org/lf/lit/awards-list/by-last-name/P120/12576|title=Literary Awards by Last Name|publisher=lannan.org|access-date=2009-01-25}}
• 1986, Whiting Award{{cite web|url=http://www.whitingfoundation.org/recipients.html|title=Recipients of the Whiting Writers Awards 2008-1985|publisher=whitingfoundation.org|access-date=2009-01-25|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080218131502/http://www.whitingfoundation.org/recipients.html|archive-date=2008-02-18}}
• 1978, Harold Morton Landon Translation Award{{cite web|url=http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/112|title=Harold Morton Landon Translation Award|publisher=poets.org|access-date=2009-01-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090515191229/http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/112|archive-date=2009-05-15|url-status=dead}}

• (1976). The Wishing Bone Cycle: Narrative poems from the Swampy Cree Indians. {{ISBN|0-88373-045-6}}
• (1978). Who Met the Ice Lynx: Naming stories of the Swampy Cree people. {{ISBN|0-916914-02-X}}
• (1986). The Owl-Scatterer. {{ISBN|0-87113-058-0}}
• (1987). Who-Paddled-Backward-With-Trout. {{ISBN|0-316-61182-4}}
• (1987). The Northern Lights: A novel. {{ISBN|0-671-53231-6}}
• (1989). How Glooskap Outwits the Ice Giants; and other tales of the Maritime Indians. {{ISBN|0-316-61181-6}}
• (1989). Kiss in the Hotel Joseph Conrad and other stories. {{ISBN|0-671-64419-X}}
• (1990). Northern Tales: Traditional stories of Eskimo and Indian peoples. {{ISBN|0-394-54060-3}}
• (1994). The Bird Artist. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, {{ISBN|0-374-11330-0}}
• (1997). The Girl Who Dreamed Only Geese, and other tales of the Far North. {{ISBN|0-15-230979-9}}
• (1998). The Museum Guard. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, {{ISBN|0-374-21649-5}}
• (1999). Trickster and the Fainting Birds. {{ISBN|0-15-200888-8}}
• (2002). The Haunting of L. Farrar, Straus {{ISBN|0-374-16825-3}}
• (2004). Between Heaven and Earth: Bird tales from around the world. {{ISBN|0-15-201982-0}}
• (2004). My Famous Evening: Nova Scotia sojourns, diaries & preoccupations. {{ISBN|0-7922-6630-7}}
• (2005). In fond Remembrance of Me. {{ISBN|0-86547-680-2}}
• (2007). Devotion. {{ISBN|978-0-618-73541-9}}
• (2008). "On the Trail of a Ghost". National Geographic. 213 (2), 137–149. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society. OCLC 227005140
• (2010) What Is Left the Daughter {{ISBN|978-0-618-73543-3}}
• (2013). I Hate to Leave This Beautiful Place. {{ISBN|978-0-547-38542-6}}
• (2014). Next Life Might Be Kinder. {{ISBN|978-0-547-71212-3}}
• (2017). My Darling Detective. {{ISBN|978-0544236103}}
• (2019). The Ghost Clause. {{ISBN|978-0544987296}}
• (2024). Come to the Window: A Novel. Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, {{ISBN|9781324076339}}

In 1989, in the same issue of International Journal of American Linguistics, the American Indian language scholar Robert Brightman published an article titled "Tricksters and Ethnopoetics" in which he argued that the trickster cycle which appears in "The Wishing Bone Cycle" was originally recorded by the American linguist Leonard Bloomfield from the Cree story teller Maggie Achenam in 1925 and that Norman took Bloomfield's prose version and rewrote it in more poetic language.

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.whiting.org/awards/winners/howard-norman#/ Profile at The Whiting Foundation]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Norman, Howard}}

Category:1949 births

Category:Living people

Category:Writers from Toledo, Ohio

Category:Western Michigan University alumni

Category:Indiana University alumni

Category:University of Michigan fellows

Category:Middlebury College faculty

Category:Goucher College faculty and staff

Category:University of Vermont faculty

Category:University of Maryland, College Park faculty

Category:Translators to English

Category:People from Chevy Chase, Maryland