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Andre Norton, born February 17th, 1912, is considered to be the Grand Dame of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Born Alice May Norton in Cleveland, Ohio, she began writing as a teenager, encouraged by a high school teacher. As many of her contemporary female writers did, she published under the name Andre, having legally changed her name to Andre Alice Norton, preferring the ambiguous first name for the publication of her science fiction.
From 1932 to 1940, she was an assistant librarian in the children’s section of the Nottingham Branch Library in Cleveland. Ms. Norton was a reader for Martin Greenberg at Gnome Press from 1941 to 1950. At that time, she decided to focus entirely on her writing. She is the first woman to receive the Nebula Grand Master Award.
Andre Norton called herself an old-fashioned storyteller. Her style is clean and simple. The settings are clearly described, and the characters quickly move the store along. The historical information in her books is carefully researched. Andre Norton published poems, short stories, books, and edited collections and anthologies. However, she is best known for her fantasy writing, especially the Witch World series. Before her death, she worked to establish a genre writers’ library, High Hallack, in the mountains of Tennessee. She died March 17, 2005.