Norton was born in North Carolina in 1940 and educated there and in the UK. He practiced environmental law for many years in Washington D.C. before moving to Cape Town in 1994. He founded and since then has volunteered for the non-profit South Africa Education and Environment Project (SAEP). SAEP provides opportunities for education and personal development for township learners and students (primarily from Philippi) from early childhood through tertiary study. He is married to Jane Keen, Director of SAEP. His lifelong passions are languages and literature, especially fiction and poetry, beginning with the ancient Greeks and Romans.
He is a contributing author to the Life Righting Collective’s anthology, This is how it is.