Meet the Author: Jeremy Norton

A native of Washington, DC, Norton received a Bachelor’s in Literature from Tufts University & a Master’s in Creative Writing from Boston University. He taught high school English in Chattanooga, TN before landing in Minneapolis, drawn by strong coffee, real winter, and Husker Du. He joined the MFD in 2000, promoting to Captain in 2007, Battalion Chief in 2015, then returning to Captain in 2017, where he remains. 

Norton will address the sociology of emergency response, the gutter end of our healthcare system, the effects of denial on end-of-life care, and the radical compassion required to maintain resiliency in a career that, by definition, requires an immersion in the suffering of others.

His book Trauma Sponges: Dispatches from the Scarred Heart of Emergency Response (2023) is a finalist for the MN Book Award in Creative Nonfiction/Memoir.