Nora Marks Dauenhauer was born in Juneau, Alaska.  Her first language is Tlingit, and she has worked extensively with Tlingit oral literature, doing fieldwork, transcription, translation and explication.  Her own poetry, prose, and drama have been widely published and anthologized. She is a free-lance writer and independent scholar.   In October 2012 she was named Alaska State Writer Laureate 2012-14.  Her field recordings of over 40 years of Tlingit oral literature, now being migrated to CD format and archived, have already become an important source of primary data for a new generation of Tlingit scholars.  She is married to Richard Dauenhauer, writer and former poet laureate of Alaska, with whom she has co-authored and co-edited several editions of Tlingit language and folklore material.