Lisa Norris
FameRank: 3

"Lisa Norris" is an American author and professor. She is the prize-winning author of Toy Guns and Women Who Sleep With Animals. She is a professor of English and Creative Writing at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington.

She has a bachelor's degree in forestry from Virginia Tech, an M.A. in English from Idaho State University, and an MFA in creative writing from American University in Washington, D.C..

Her book Toy Guns is a collection of short stories written from multiple perspectives. Norris explores violence in the contemporary American culture using a variety of first- and third-person narrative styles, and through an assortment of colorful characters—most of whom are female. The book's focus is on the various ways violent experiences can be articulated: violent threats, acts, memories, suggestions, relationships, games, and other situations dominate the tales spun in Toy Guns. Toy Guns was published by Helicon Nine Editions in 1999 and won the Willa Cather prize for fiction.

More Lisa Norris on Wikipedia.

He's the reason I wrote my book. I thought if Randy Hatch can do it, I can, too. Neither of us are writers, but we knew we had a story to tell.

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I am really angry with the people who did this, they shouldn't get away with it. By rights they should be put out of their jobs and never allowed back into the [National Health Service], because it could happen to someone else maybe worse off than me.

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I do believe we can reach at-risk kids. We can make a difference in their lives. For the most part they are just unruly kids who need discipline and guidance.

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We currently have three former students at Bethel College who are on the Dean's List. We have six or seven students who are in the military and two students who just recently received athletic scholarships.

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It's our job to teach them how to survive within the environment they are living in. If it's not a threat to society, the family or the child, they need to learn how to survive within that environment.

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