Gregory Norris Has Died

A Remembrance Of A Writer's Writer, And My Friend

One of my favorite memories of Greg - him reading his short story from the Murder Ink Collection that I had the honor of editing.

Early in the New Hampshire chapter of my writing career, I was invited to join a Writer’s Group up in Berlin, N.H. led by Gregory Norris. Berlin is two hours away. The group met weekly. On a weekday.

Seemed far.

But I went because I was curious and Greg seemed like an interesting fellow.

Did you ever do something reluctantly that, in retrospect, you realize changed your life? Greg and his group did that - mostly because of his aggressive, persistent, literally eternal optimism in the art and process of being a writer.

He swore he’d live and die by his writing.

He accomplished that goal. Last week, my friend Greg passed away, up in Berlin, at his home, which he had named Xanadu. (After the Olivia Newton John / ELO movie, by the way, one of his favorites.)

I had the great honor as the editor of the Murder Ink Anthology series of publishing three of his stories. They didn’t need much editing. Greg was also an editor. And a proof reader. And a reader.

He wrote buckets. Constantly. He was writing ALL. THE. TIME. He lived and breathed words. I’d never seen a writer work like him. I doubt I ever will again. He had a list of hundreds of story ideas that he was constantly working on. He published Star Trek scripts. He sent tidal waves of stories out to markets, every day.

He embodied… writer.

But that’s not why I loved him.

I loved him because he looked at me, personally, and found value. He looked at my writing, deeply, and found value. There was not a single, tiny ounce of competitiveness in his bones.

If you were a writer, he wanted you to succeed. Period. And he would help you, root for you, send you potential markets, edit your work if you wanted.

If all you needed was a hug, he’d give you that. In all the years I’d known him, I cannot recall a single moment of criticism or jealously. Helpful critique, yes. Criticism? No.

He set a standard for me - and for the many, many writers he inspired - that was impossible to achieve.

Impossible.

But many of us, never-the-less, tried. I continue to try. His daily writing, in fact, is the template for these daily writings that you read here each morning.

Thankfully, Little Bean got to meet Greg as well. Here’s a gathering of Berlin Writer’s Group folks at Greg’s home. Honored to be in this picture, among some of the finest writers and humans I’ve known.

I had always meant to get up north for a group meeting one of these more recent days. But after COVID, life got busy, my own writing was bustling and I never made it back up. He’d send me notes saying things like, “There will always be a seat at the table up here for you,” and he’d refer to me as “mein talented friend!”

I could write about him for days. But I won’t. You know why? Because he’d be absolutely mortified by all of this. So much time spent on remembering. Not enough time spent moving forward, thinking, writing.

GET. BACK. TO. WORK. WRITER.

So, tonight, when I finish this post, I’m going to have a good cry. Then, I’m going to suck it up and write tomorrow’s essay for you all. And the day after. And beyond.

That’s how I’ll remember him. With words that will cut you like a blade or lull you to sleep, and ideas that have meaning and power and grace.

“Keep creating!” he’d say. So I will. Farewell Gregory. Where ever the heck you ended up - with luck, the real Xanadu - I hope you have a pen and a notebook on your lap to capture all your words, forever and forever and forever …