Elisabeth Waters

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Fan
Name: Elisabeth Waters
Alias(es): Lisa Waters
Type: writer, editor, organizer
Fandoms: Darkover, Sime~Gen, The Fantastic Journey
Communities:
Other:
URL: "her profile"
Elisabeth Waters: News, Random Thoughts, and Story Ideas
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Elisabeth Waters was a writer in the Sime~Gen and Darkover fandoms. She wrote fiction in Starstone, edited at least one Ambrov Zeor!. She was listed in Darkover Newsletter as "office manager and bookkeeper," and it was there she was very active and made many editorial comments.

Waters was Marion Zimmer Bradley's long-time personal assistant. An article in the "New York Times" at the time of Bradley's death referred to Waters as Bradley's "cousin and secretary." [1]

Waters and Bradley were romantically involved from 1978 to at least 1985. [2]

They were introduced to each other in Jacqueline Lichtenberg's living room [3] [4] in the summer of 1977 [5]

From her blog: "Elisabeth Waters sold her first short story in 1980 to Marion Zimmer Bradley for THE KEEPER'S PRICE, the first of the Darkover anthologies. She then went on to sell short stories to a variety of anthologies. Her first novel, a fantasy called CHANGING FATE, was awarded the 1989 Gryphon Award. She is now working on a sequel to it, in addition to her short story writing and anthology editing." [6]

Waters and Bradley's Living Trust

Elisabeth Waters is the beneficiary of Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust. [7]

See Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust: Who's in Charge? Who Benefits?.

Comments Regarding Delegation, The Literary Trust

Comments by Elizabeth Waters on April 30, 2014:

Delegation is a good thing, but there are some things a writer can't delegate, such as writing her books. Things that can be delegated include website design and updating, social media, newsletters, answering fan mail (or e-mail), etc.

There are certainly parts of producing an anthology that can be delegated--I know this because Marion delegated everything she didn't want to do to me: sending contracts; paying advances; sending contributors' copies; keeping track of royalties, authors' changes of address and names; and paying royalties. Her death added choosing the stories and the final line-up, assembling the manuscript and sending it to the publisher. Vera's/Norilana's bankruptcy added producing the book to the job. At least the Trust is willing to pay to have someone else do the book covers, because I'm horrible at that.

Then there's all my work for the Trust. At the moment, we have 20 anthologies in print, with two more coming this year, and two more planned for 2015. Most of them are paying royalties, and I expect the ones that aren't yet to do so in the next year or two. Given the number of authors involved, paying royalties is becoming a big job. When Marion was alive, she had a staff of four people in her office, plus another two in her household. Since her death, we've lost that staff to death, jobs that provide the salary needed to live, other interests, other responsibilities, and the fact that all of us are getting older. Only two of the staff were younger than I, and one of them is the one who died. So I'm the next-to-youngest, and I'm eligible to collect Social Security this year.

I need to delegate. I also need to train a replacement, because the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust is going to outlive me. Even if I believe I can do my job better than anyone else, I won't always be able to do it--or even be here to do it. [8]

The 2014 Allegations Regarding Marion Zimmer Bradley

Standards of Proof is a June 18, 2014 blog post by Waters which may be a metaphoric comment about the 2014 allegations regarding Marion Zimmer Bradley.

E-Books: Profits and Donations

On July 1, 2014, Victor Gollancz Ltd wrote:

Allegations about Marion Zimmer Bradley have surfaced in the last couple of weeks, including a statement from her daughter, Moira Greyland, that she was sexually abused by her mother. Ms Bradley died in 1999 and therefore cannot answer these charges, nor are we in a position to comment on them; we are also mindful of the dangers of drawing a link between any writer’s personal life and their work. Further, we are aware that royalties from the sales of her work are mainly distributed between a range of charities, including Save the Children. We have considered carefully what response, if any, we – as publishers of her digital backlist – should make in this situation. We have decided that we will henceforth donate our income from sales of her Gateway e-books to Save the Children. We will be making no further comment on the matter. [9]

On February 16, 2016, Elisabeth Waters posted about MZB's ebooks. She did not mention profits in any way:

The MZB Literary Works Trust has starting publishing eBooks on Kobo (I attended their presentation at the RWA Conference in NYC last summer).

The most recent book is the anthology I edited last year: Sword and Sorceress 30.

I will start reading for Sword and Sorceress 31 as soon as tax season and my volunteer work for AARP Tax-Aide ends. [10]

Interviews

2000

Further Reading

References

  1. ^ Marion Zimmer Bradley, 69, Writer of Darkover Fantasies
  2. ^ Marion Zimmer Bradley: Elisabeth Waters Deposition, Complete, Archived version (1997)
  3. ^ Marion Zimmer Bradley's Influence on the Sime~Gen Universe
  4. ^ Photo: Lisa Waters, at Jacqueline Lichtenberg's home, Archived version; Wayback, linked from Jacqueline Lichtenberg's simegen.com website: Sime~Gen Historical Images: Do You Remember When?
  5. ^ "THE KEEPER'S PRICE is a collaboration; and when such a story bears the names of two authors, one amateur and one professional, the reader is always curious to know how the collaboration came about. Last summer, visiting Jacqueline Lichtenberg, I met Lisa and in the course of the evening she told me she found the character of Hilary, briefly mentioned in FORBIDDEN TOWER, so intriguing that she had written a story about her. This startled me—I too had written a Hilary story—and I urged Lisa to send me hers, promising to let her read mine. When Lisa sent her story, untitled, somewhat fragmentary, I found it so gripping to my imagination that I was almost unconscious of its flaws; and it dovetailed into my world in such a way that all I really contributed to this story—which is, in essence, Lisa's—was the detail of Keeper's training which Lisa could not have been expected to know. I'm proud to present it here MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY" — from Starstone #1 (1/1978)
  6. ^ Elisabeth Waters: News, Random Thoughts, and Story Ideas, accessed September 20, 2016
  7. ^ It appears that the "Marion Zimmer Bradley's Living Trust" (cited as the publisher of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine from 1994-2000) is the same organization/corporation.
  8. ^ Delegation, Archived version, April 30, 2014, posted right before the allegations against Bradley were publicized.
  9. ^ Marion Zimmer Bradley
  10. ^ Elisabeth Waters: News, Random Thoughts, and Story Ideas
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