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Marion Zimmer Bradley

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Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley (June 3, 1930 – September 25, 1999) was a prolific author of largely feminist fantasy novels such as The Mists of Avalon and was a steadfast encourager of equality (and quality) in writing. In literary circles, she is often referred to by her initials, "MZB," a nickname reinforced by her good friend and editor, Donald A. Wollheim.

Contents

Biography

Born on a farm in Albany, New York, during the Great Depression, she began writing in 1949 and sold her first story to Vortex in 1952. She was married to Robert Alden Bradley from October 26, 1949 until their divorce on May 19, 1964. During the 1950s she was introduced to the cultural and campaigning lesbian group the Daughters of Bilitis.

After her divorce she quickly married Walter Breen on June 3, 1964. They separated in 1979 but remained married until their divorce on May 9, 1990. After his eventual arrest a year later for illicit relations with an underage teen, she gave a deposition acknowledging she knew of his relations with a couple of teenage boys. His accusers claim she supported him in hiding it in subsequent years.

In 1965 Bradley graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hardin Simmons University in Abilene, Texas. Afterward, she moved to Berkeley, California, to pursue graduate studies at University of California Berkeley between 1965 and 1967. Her first child, David Bradley, and brother, Paul Edwin Zimmer are published science fiction & fantasy authors in their own right. Her daughter, Moira Stern, is a professional harpist and singer.

After suffering declining health for years, Marion Zimmer Bradley died at Alta Bates Medical Center in Berkeley on September 25, 1999 four days after suffering a debilitating heart attack. Her ashes were scattered at Glastonbury Tor, in Somerset, England, two months later.

Literary career

Bradley was the editor of the long-running Sword and Sorceress anthology series, which encouraged submissions of fantasy stories featuring original and non-traditional heroines from young and upcoming authors. Although she encouraged in particular young female authors, she was not averse to including males in her anthologies. Mercedes Lackey was just one of many authors who first appeared in the anthologies. She also maintained a large family of writers at her home in Berkeley. Ms Bradley was editing the final Sword and Sorceress manuscript up until the week of her death.

She created the planet of Darkover as a setting for her own series, writing a large number of Darkover stories as a solo author and later collaborating with other authors to produce Darkover anthologies, where once again she encouraged story submissions from unpublished authors. For a time, Bradley actively encouraged fan fiction within the Darkover universe, but this came to an end following a dispute with a fan over an unpublished Darkover novel of Bradley's that had similarities to some of the fan's stories. As a result, the novel remained unpublished, and Bradley demanded the cessation of all Darkover fan fiction. The Darkover novels may be considered fantasy with science fiction overtones or science fiction with fantasy overtones, as Darkover was a lost earth colony where psi powers had developed to an unusual degree.

Probably her most famous single novel is The Mists of Avalon, a retelling of the Camelot legend from Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere's) point of view that grew into a series of books, too.

Bradley's first published novel-length work was Falcons of Narabedla, first published in the May 1957 issue of Other Worlds. When she was a child, Bradley stated that she enjoyed reading adventure fantasy authors such as Henry Kuttner, Edmond Hamilton, and Leigh Brackett, especially when they wrote about "the glint of strange suns on worlds that never were and never would be." Her first novel, as well as much of her subsequent work, show their influence strongly.

Also, writing early in her career as Morgan Ives, Miriam Gardner, John Dexter and Lee Chapman, Marion Zimmer Bradley produced several works outside the speculative fiction genre, including some gay and lesbian-themed novels. For example, I Am a Lesbian was published in 1962. Though relatively tame by today's standards, they were considered pornographic when published, and for a long time she refused to disclose the titles.

In 1966, Bradley became a cofounder of the Society for Creative Anachronism, and is credited with coining the name of that group.

In 2000 she was awarded the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement.

Notable quotations

On L. Ron Hubbard: "I knew Ron when he was a 'small-time' crook". [This line has also been attributed to L. Sprague de Camp.]

On tabloids: "I used to love to look at the National Enquirer at the Grocery Store but I was always afraid to buy it because a truck might hit me in the parking lot and I'd be caught dead with it."

Bibliography

Novels

Short story collections

Series

Anthologies

Novels under pen names

Poems

Music

Editorial positions

Scholarly work

She also contributed to The Ladder and The Mattachine Review.

External links

 

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