Norman describes "The Bird Artist", a novel, as his most conservative book structurally, though not psychologically. Time magazine named "The Bird Artist" one of its Best Five Books for 1994. It also was awarded the New England Booksellers Association Prize in Fiction, and Norman received a Lannan Literary Award for this book. "The Bird Artist" and "The Northern Lights" were finalists for the National Book Award. "The Northern Lights" was completed with assistance from the Whiting Award. He received the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets for "The Wishing Bone Cycle". In "On the trail of a ghost", an article published by "National Geographic", Norman writes about Japan’s haiku master, Matsuo Bashō's 1200-mile walk in 1689, and the journey's epic log, entitled "Oku no Hosomichi". His book, "My Famous Evening: Nova Scotia Sojourns, Diaries & Preoccupations" was published under National Geographic's "Directions" travel series. It includes a chapter on the Nova Scotia poet Elizabeth Bishop. There are also several early books published in small numbers. These include: "The Woe Shirt", "Arrives Without Dogs", and "Bay of Fundy Journal", amongst others. In 1999, Norman taught at Middlebury College in Vermont. Norman became Goucher College's Writer in Residence in 2003. In 2006, he was appointed a Marsh professor at University of Vermont. Norman now teaches creative writing in the Masters of Fine Arts program at the University of Maryland, College Park. Norman has contributed to book review periodicals ("The New York Times Book Review"; "Los Angeles Times Book Review"; "National Geographic Traveler"), participated on literary journals' editorial staff ("Conjunctions": "Ploughshares"), and been a member of the board of directors for PEN New York and PEN/Faulkner group, Washington, D.C.  Norman met poet Jane Shore in 1981, and they married in 1984. They have a daughter, Emma. Norman and Shore lived in Cambridge, New Jersey, Oahu, and Vermont, before settling into homes in Chevy Chase, Maryland near Washington, D.C. during the school year, and East Calais, Vermont in the summertime. Their friend, the author David Mamet, Shore's Goddard College classmate, lives nearby. During the summer of 2003, poet Reetika Vazirani was housesitting the Norman's Chevy Chase home.