Marion Zimmer was born in Albany NY on June 3 1930 and married Robert Alden Bradley in
1949. Mrs. Bradley received her B.A. in 1964 from Hardin Simmons University in Abilene Texas
then did graduate work at the University of California Berkeley from 1965-67. She was a
science fiction fantasy fan from her middle teens and made her first sale as an adjunct to an
amateur fiction contest in Fantastic Amazing Stories in 1949. She had written as long as she
could remember but wrote only for school magazines and fanzines until 1952 when she sold her
first professional short story to Vortex Science Fiction. She wrote everything from science
fiction to Gothics but is probably best known for her Darkover novels. In addition to her
novels Mrs. Bradley edited many magazines amateur and professional including Marion Zimmer
Bradley's Fantasy Magazine which she started in 1988. She also edited an annual anthology
called Sword and Sorceress for DAW Books. Over the years she turned more to fantasy The House
Between the Worlds although a selection of the Science Fiction Book Club was "fantasy
undiluted". She wrote a novel of the women in the Arthurian legends -- Morgan Le Fay the Lady
of the Lake and others - entitled Mists of Avalon which made the NY Times best seller list
both in hardcover and trade paperback and she also wrote The Firebrand a novel about the
women of the Trojan War. Her historical fantasy novels The Forest House Lady of Avalon Mists
of Avalon are prequels to Priestess of Avalon. She died in Berkeley California on September 25
1999 four days after suffering a major heart attack. She was survived by her brother Leslie
Zimmer her sons David Bradley and Patrick Breen her daughter Moira Stern and her
grandchildren.
