Author Interview: Marion Zimmer Bradley Trust: Ann Sharp and Lisa Waters

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Author Interview: Marion Zimmer Bradley Trust (Ann Sharp and Lisa Waters)
Interviewer:	Katharine Eliska Kimbriel
Interviewee:	Ann Sharp and Lisa Waters
Date(s):	December 2, 2013
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	Darkover; Marion Zimmer Bradley
External Links:	Author Interview: Marion Zimmer Bradley Trust, Archived version
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Lisa Waters and Ann Sharp, the trustees for Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust, were interviewed for "Book View Café."

Some Excerpts

1.) What pushed Marion Zimmer Bradley to become a working fiction writer? Why did she go down that creative path? A.) MZB used to say that she didn’t want her children raised by someone whose market value was less than hers, and writing enabled her to work at home. She really wanted to become an opera singer, but she didn’t have the resources to train; writing was her second choice.

And:

4.) MZB became a formidable editor, launching a fiction magazine and a successful series of anthologies based on her Darkover world. Why did she decide to become an editor? Did financial need drive her, or did she see it as a way to pay forward? Was she trying to channel fan fiction into building new writers? A.) It definitely was not financial need; by the time she edited her first anthology, she was financially secure. She firmly believed in paying forward and never forgot the support that she had received as a young writer. The Darkover anthologies did start as a way of publishing the best of the fan fiction. In her Sword and Sorceress anthologies, while she certainly encouraged new writers, there was no fan fiction involved. She was enormously proud of what we still call “MZB’s writers”: the authors who made their first sale to her and went on to successful careers of their own.