She began writing at the Collingwood High School in Cleveland, under the tutelage of Miss Sylvia Cochrane. She was the editor of a literary page in the school's paper for which she wrote short stories. During this time she wrote her first book—"Ralestone Luck", which would eventually find its way to publication as her second novel in 1938, the first being "The Prince Commands" in 1934.
After graduating from the High School in 1930, she continued her education at the Flora Stone Mather College of Western Reserve University.
In 1932 she began working for the Cleveland Library System and remained there for 18 years, latterly in the children's section of the Nottingham Branch Library in Cleveland.
In 1934, she legally changed her name to Andre Alice Norton; a change made in order to appeal to a predominantly male audience and to increase her marketability.
From 1940 to 1941, she worked as a special librarian in the cataloguing department of the Library of Congress, involved in a project related to alien citizenship. The project was abruptly terminated at the start of World War II.
In 1941 she took ownership of a bookstore called the Mystery House, in Mount Ranier, Maryland, USA. The business proved to be a failure and she began working as a reader for Martin Greenberg at Gnome Press until 1949, after which she became a professional author.
Needs much much more about her post-1949 writing career
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