Everything that I have seen, read, and watched, has said to keep the "dull" side of the hackle facing you when tying and towards the eye when you palmer it. I am not sure what I am doing wrong, but it always seems to twist on me.
Being new to tying also, I had the same frustration with hackle "twisting" while taking wraps and not orienting perpendicular to the hook shank. Orvis has awesome instructional videos. In most of them, they mention stripping a few fibers from the far side of the stem before taking wraps with it. That will help the fibers orient correctly and I've found that to be huge help.