I (Sarah Ettritch) established Norn Publishing when I decided to go the self-publishing route with my work. I set up this site for the company, but the content was just a duplicate of the books section on my author site. It was a pain having to add new books to two places, so I decided to convert this site to what you see now: an invitation to go to my author site, where you can find out more about my books (and me).
Why Norn Publishing?
In addition to writing, I enjoy playing computer games. Norn Publishing came into being in 2009. At the time, I was playing an online game called Guild Wars. The game offered computer characters, called heroes, to help players complete quests and explore the world. One of my favourite heroes was Jora. Not only was Jora a strong and capable warrior, she had a compelling story attached to her character. She and her brother were cursed when they awakened an ancient evil (yeah, cliché, but it still worked for me). Jora could no longer change into the form of a bear, and her brother, trapped in a hideous bear form, was terrorizing and killing her people. In the game, you help Jora track down her brother. When you find him, she kills him to free them both from the curse—a poignant and emotional moment.
When I was coming up with a name for the business, I considered the name Jora Publishing, but I wasn't crazy about using a name in the company name. Jora belongs to a race called the Norn, so I researched that angle and discovered that Norn comes from Norse mythology. That explained why the Norn in Guild Wars remind me of Vikings and live in snowy, cold areas (which remind me of the winters here in Toronto, though unlike the Norn females in Guild Wars, we don’t usually hang around in fur bikinis). It turns out that the Norn are females who show up at every birth to spin the newborn’s future. When I write, I spin the fates of my characters, so I thought that was neat and decided to go with it.
I chose Publishing, rather than Press or Books, because “press” and “books” are now limiting concepts. Who knows how we'll consume the written word in the future? All I know is that I’ll adapt and publish my work in the format du jour, and that’s why I settled on Publishing.