Norris, Frances

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Norris, Frances

PERSONAL: Female.

ADDRESSES: Home—Los Angeles, CA. Office—Harvard-Westlake School, Middle School Campus, 700 North Faring Rd., Los Angeles, CA 90077. Agent—c/o Author Mail, St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Teacher and writer. Harvard-Westlake School, Los Angeles, CA, teacher of English and creative writing.

WRITINGS:

Blue Plate Special: A Novel of Love, Loss, and Food, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including Atlantic Monthly.

SIDELIGHTS: Originally from Kentucky, Frances Norris moved to Los Angeles, California, and became a middle school English and creative writing teacher at the Harvard-Westlake School. In 2005 she published her first book, Blue Plate Special: A Novel of Love, Loss, and Food. Norris tells the story of thirty-three-year-old Julia Daniel, a Los Angeles transplant from Kentucky, who is struggling with depression, a dead-end job, and the recent loss of her father and stepmother in a plane crash. An insufferable boss and a scheming stepsister bent on cheating Julia out of her inheritance thwart the woman's efforts to move her life forward. Therapy, the support of her friends, and a business trip to Arizona bring Julia a chance at true love and an opportunity to achieve her dream of becoming a photographer.

A Publishers Weekly reviewer called Blue Plate Special "a thoughtful look at making one's way in a world that's uncertain," while Andrea Y. Griffith wrote in a review for Library Journal that "Norris has written a realistic thirtysomething novel, funny and sad." Booklist reviewer Marta Segal Block dubbed Blue Plate Special as "a charming first novel."