Lisa Norton has been a waitress, a housekeeper, a painter, a grocery store clerk and even a hat-check girl. But she likes her job now.

“It feels good to finally be a full-time writer,” Norton said. “This has always been the life I’ve dreamed of.”

Norton is the author of Hawk Flies Above: Journey to the Heart of the Sandhills. She will be giving a reading at Big Table Books tonight at 7:30 p.m.

Hawk is part memoir and part natural history. Norton chronicles her life experiences from a magical childhood in a small Nebraska town to traveling aimlessly around the country.

“I came of age in a wandering time,” Norton said. “For years I had a difficult time staying in one place.”

The wandering shows. Norton has lived in Arkansas, Texas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa and finally settled down with her husband in Oregon. Fortunately, all of that traveling makes for a great memoir.

Norton’s life experience includes everything from smoking pot and overeating to being brutally raped and beaten by a stranger in Miami. Hawk reveals her attempt to find a purpose to life after spending years trying to run away from herself.

But Norton’s memoir is more than a journalized recovery after a tragedy. It is a testament to the history and the endangered wildlife of her homeland in the Nebraska Sandhills.

“The book is about a place and my life in that place,” Norton said. “The plot is my life.”

Norton seems to have finally found that purpose she longed for. In addition to her writing, she started a reading series and workshop for other writers at the Neahkahnie Institute in Oregon.

“Sometimes I still can’t believe I’m paid to write,” Norton said. “It seems like a dream.”