Bett Norris | Author

I was born and raised in Alabama, just down the road from Monroeville, where Harper Lee grew up and still lives. I graduated from the University of Alabama (Roll Tide.) I live in Florida with my partner Sandy, who is an artist. We have two cats, Sketch and Sister, and a pond full of koi and goldfish. Favorite literary quote: "The truth is not in the Delafields."

I love to read, almost anything. My favorite authors: Jane Rule, Harper Lee, Joan Didion, John Steinbeck, Rick Bragg, Katherine V. Forrest, J M Redmann, Sara Peretsky, Laurie R. King, Elizabeth George, Lillian Hellman, Emma Donoghue, Lillian Faderman, Truman Capote, Cynn Chadwick, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Bruce Catton, Dan T. Carter, ad infinitum. Then there's Alabama football. That's it.

I read every book in my elementary school library, then walked across town to the public library. I seem to have missed some of the "classics" in literature, too busy reading Louis L'Amour (more about that later!) and every biography and history book I could find, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Wind in the Willows, and other books, any book, really. I read the collected plays of Tennessee Williams and Lillian Hellman, also Eugene O'Neil, as well as Shakespeare, because I thought I should. I also read innumerable romance novels (and still like them) murder mysteries, police and courtroom procedurals. I've read books about politics and animals, books about writing and books about kayaking, books about mountain climbing and about faith and baseball and . . . you get the idea. If it's a book, I'll read it.

About writing: I wrote my autobiography when I was eleven years old, on the back of a Liberty Insurance wall calendar. Not much has changed since then.