A Prayer for Peace

May I become at all times, both now and forever
A protector for those without protection
A guide for those who have lost their way
A ship for those with oceans to cross
A bridge for those with rivers to cross
A sanctuary for those in danger
A lamp for those without light
A place of refuge for those who lack shelter
And a servant to all in need.

(Buddhist prayer)

Photo by Jon Sullivan, public domain.

The Tajji Diaries: Rehearsal and Reversal

 We’ve started the Reactive Rover class given by Sandi Pensinger of Living With Dogs, in order to help Tajji with her reactivity to dogs and, to a lesser extent, people she doesn’t know. The first two sessions were watching videos about reading canine body language and specific relaxation techniques. We’d recently seen both, as Sandi invited us to attend the “classroom” part for a previous class that was full. Because the dogs work individually in the “fieldwork” part of the course, each class limited to four dogs. So watching them this time was a repetition.

We felt Tajji had made progress on her walks. She’d gone from barking at pedestrians to looking at them and walking by. Although she still reacted to other dogs, even at extreme distance, we were piling up more times when she came away with us readily, sometimes with a bark or just a huff. There were even instances where she was able to look at the other dog – the old black Labrador who shuffles very slowly up and down the street and then lies down in the sun, in particular – without barking. 

So when Sandi, our teacher, said to not give our dogs any opportunity to “rehearse” reactivity, we thought we were doing pretty well, anyway. The idea is that the more times the dog reacts – barking, lunging, (heaven forbid) biting, piloerection (that’s hairs standing up along the spine), etc., the more deeply that behavior gets “etched” into the dog’s brain. She compared it to a road, where each passage digs deeper and deeper ruts, ruts that become more progressively difficult to jump out of. While we are creating new, positive behaviors, we want to not give our dog the chance to “rehearse” the old ones as well.

Summer Reading: Gems From Book View Café Authors

Before I took off for ten days in New York City, I loaded up my trusty e-readers with offerings from Book View Café writers, then picked books at random. What a delight they were!

Katharine Eliska Kimbriel’s “Alfreda” novels – Night Calls and Kindred Rites. I’d enjoyed Kimbriel’s “Nuala” science fiction novels and looked forward to her Young Adult series. Set in an alternate, magical American frontier, these coming-of-age stories are told in such a powerful, distinctive voice and with such rich world-building, they drew me in from the very first paragraphs. Adolescent Alfreda comes from line of psychically gifted people, which in itself doesn’t sound very original. Her personality, her family, and her world, however, mark these stories as among the very best. I loved the relationships between Alfreda and her parents and brothers, her townsfolk neighbors, but most of all, the natural world – the tangle of forest and harsh weather, wild animals and supernatural entities – ghosts, werewolves, witches, and more. All too often, the characters in fantasy tales are orphaned or in some way disconnected from their families. In Kimbriel’s work, however, Alfreda’s family of loving, contentious, beautifully-drawn people, give her the strength and context to face her magical calling. I loved how competent Alfreda is, not only in the domestic chores expected of any young woman in that age and place, but in wilderness survival. Kimbriel’s writing is so smooth, the dramatic tension so finely handled, that I was caught on the very first pages.

INTERVIEW: Vera Nazarian on Stars of Darkover

STARS OF DARKOVER – not just the glorious night sky over the world of the Bloody Sun, but the authors who have been inspired over the decades by Marion Zimmer Bradley’s favorite world. It will be released on June 3, 2014, to celebrate Marion's 84th birthday

Vera Nazarian is a two-time Nebula Award Nominee, award-winning artist, and member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, a writer with a penchant for moral fables and stories of intense wonder, true love, and intricacy. She is the author of critically acclaimed novels Dreams Of The Compass Rose and Lords Of Rainbow, as well as the outrageous parodies Mansfield Park And Mummies and Northanger Abbey And Angels And Dragons, and most recently, Pride And Platypus: Mr. Darcy's Dreadful Secret in her humorous and surprisingly romantic Supernatural Jane Austen Series. Her latest work is the epic fantasy Cobweb Bride Trilogy set in an alternate Renaissance. After many years in Los Angeles, Vera lives in a small town in Vermont, and uses her Armenian sense of humor and her Russian sense of suffering to bake conflicted pirozhki and make art.


Deborah J. Ross: How did Marion Zimmer Bradley influence your writing career?

Vera Nazarian: There are no words sufficient to say how much of an impact Marion had on me as a young writer starting out. She bought my first story “Wound on the Moon” for Sword and Sorceress #2 (DAW Books, 1985), and my second and my third, and so on, so she gave me my “pro wings.” But that’s not all—her wonderful advice on storytelling, her supportive rejections—yup, there were tons of rejections, including the very first rejection where she graciously went through a novella with a red pen and gave me, a teenager just starting out, a detailed edit critique free of charge and encouraged me to rewrite and resubmit—all of this helped give me a focus and a direction and an understanding of the writing and editing process. And not only that, I also learned a great deal about shared world writing by writing in the world of Darkover. Basically I would not be the writer that I am now without her. I owe her everything, and am profoundly honored to be one of “Marion’s own writers” as so many of us went on to be.

INTERVIEW: Rosemary Edghill on Stars of Darkover

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TARS OF DARKOVER – not just the glorious night sky over the world of the Bloody Sun, but the authors who have been inspired over the decades by Marion Zimmer Bradley’s favorite world. It will be released on June 3, 2014, to celebrate Marion's 84th birthday.

Rosemary Edghill (aka eluki bes shahar) has published stories in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine as well as MZB’s long-running Sword & Sorceress anthology series.  This led to her ghost-writing the urban fantasy series Witchlight, Ghostlight, Gravelight, and Heartlight under Bradley’s name. A woman of many, many talents, she’s also an anthologist and editorial mentor.  Her most recent books include the Shadow Grail series. 

Deborah J. Ross How did Marion Zimmer Bradley influence your writing career?

Rosemary Edghill: Of course she influenced me, just as she did all writers of my generation by the stories she chose to tell, and by the founding of MZB’s Fantasy Magazine.  Writing for MZBFM and for the Sword and Sorceress anthology series was an exercise in writing to market while putting aside the preconceptions still widely held in the F/SF field of the time: it stretched my imagination, and really showed me what I could manage to get away with in terms of plot.

But more than that, having been privileged to collaborate with her and to write as her, I had the opportunity to study her writing in depth: her vocabulary and sentence structure, her themes and her methods of drawing a character.  It was really a master class in the “bread and butter” aspects of storytelling, and I think it has affected the stories I choose to tell, and the way I tell them, ever since.

DJR:  Tell us about your story in Stars of Darkover.

RE: The title, SECOND CONTACT, is a play on the phrase “First Contact”, which is usually used to describe the first meeting of human and alien.  But first contacts are easy: it’s figuring out what comes after you learn to say “hello” that’s hard.  The story is set a couple of years after Rediscovery, and features one of my favorite themes: culture clash.  Jenny Lauren is doing her best to help Darkover fit into the Terran Empire: Armsman Zhenyar thinks she’s going about it all wrong.  It wouldn’t be a good story if both sides weren’t completely right, of course!

Rediscovery is my favorite period of Darkovan history, and I think some of MZB’s best tales were set there.  The mix of “sorcerous” Darkovans and blaster-wielding Terrans gives the stories a Leigh Brackett/Fletcher Pratt space opera feel, while Marion’s modern sensibilities kept the material fresh.

Living With Animals: Welcome Home, Mommy Monkey!

Shakir and Gayatri

I’ve been traveling for a little under two weeks and arrived home, hideously jet-lagged, to be greeted by various furred denizens of our household. (And also mine excellent spouse, but you can imagine for yourselves how that reunion went.) I’m struck by the differences in how they welcomed me home.

Tajji (German Shepherd Dog). Dave reported that she had been moping and looking for me when I left. She’s an affectionate, enthusiastic dog, so I expected great, ecstatic romping and kisses and general carrying-on. Sure enough, when I walked in the door, she started bounding and showing great joy – but not for me, for Dave, who had picked me up at the airport and been away for oh, maybe 2 hours at the most. But in the hours that followed, she would not let me out of her sight. She followed me from room to room as I unpacked and took every opportunity to snuggle up against me. (As I write this, she’s curled up on the dog bed in my office, watching me.) When I’ve taken her for a walk or worked on clicker training, she’s stayed remarkably focused on me.

Shakir (black cat) ran to greet me, ascertained that I had no food, and then went about his business as usual. I’m not sure he noticed I’d been gone, only gone from the kitchen. He’s cuddled with me at bedtime and when I’m sitting on the sofa knitting, as usual. A most unflappable cat.

Gayatri (tabby and white cat) was the real surprise. When I arrived, she was asleep in one of her favorite places, a towel-lined basket on top of the fax machine. When I came into the room, she startled awake, saw it was me, and went into a frenzy of welcome: purring alternating with loud meowing, rubbing up against me, rolling on her back so I could pet her tummy, then on her feet, polishing me with her jaw, then on her back…this went on for many minutes. And the orgy of feline delight repeated several times over the next day, although never as intense.

INTERVIEW: Elisabeth Waters and Ann Sharp on Stars of Darkover

STARS OF DARKOVER – not just the glorious night sky over the world of the Bloody Sun, but the authors who have been inspired over the decades by Marion Zimmer Bradley’s favorite world. It will be released on June 3, 2014, to celebrate Marion's 84th birthday.

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. She also worked as a supernumerary with the San Francisco Opera, where she appeared in La Gioconda, Manon Lescaut, Madama Butterfly, Khovanschina, Das Rheingold, Werther, and Idomeneo.

Ann Sharp, who edited The Darkover Newsletter for ten years, is known for her articles on writing. After the DNL was no longer published, she continued to write these articles for Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine. She is also known for her interest in genealogy and is active in the Daughters of the American Revolution, Daughters of Founders and Patriots, the National Society of New England Women, and the Colonial Dames of the 17th Century.

Deborah J. Ross: How did Marion Zimmer Bradley influence your writing career?

Elisabeth Waters and Ann Sharp: We are both graduates of the Marion Zimmer Bradley School of Hack-Writing. Ann says that Marion was the first person to explain simply and clearly the elements of a plot. Great literature does not do this very well. Lisa remembers Marion saying that one editor told her to stop trying to show how beautifully she could write and just tell the story. Obviously Marion provided years of nagging encouragement.

INTERVIEW: Shariann Lewitt on Stars of Darkover

STARS OF DARKOVER – not just the glorious night sky over the world of the Bloody Sun, but the authors who have been inspired over the decades by Marion Zimmer Bradley’s favorite world. It will be released on June 3, 2014, to celebrate Marion's 84th birthday.

Reading Marion Zimmer Bradley’s work when she was a girl was part of what inspired Shariann Lewitt to become a science fiction writer.  Today she has published seventeen books and over forty short stories under five different names.  When not writing she teaches at MIT, studies flamenco dance, and is accounted reasonably accomplished at embroidery.

Deborah J. Ross: How did Marion Zimmer Bradley influence your writing career?

Shariann Lewitt: Marion Zimmer Bradley, and the Darkover books in particular, are part of the reason I became a science fiction writer.  As a young girl, Bradley was one of the writers who wrote about girls and women in a way I could identify—interesting, active women with agency, but who also chafed at the constraints of their society.  Many of the other writers I enjoyed reading growing up wrote entirely fantasy, and here Darkover was a wonderful exception because, while there was magic, there was also science.  At least there was space travel, and I was one of the kids who loved science and the space program.  Girls existed and sometimes got to act in fantasy books, but were entirely invisible in any books with space ships and star travel.  More than anything else, Marion Zimmer Bradley showed me that I could be a science fiction writer without erasing myself as a female from the time I was very young,

INTERVIEW: Diana L. Paxson on Stars of Darkover

STARS OF DARKOVER – not just the glorious night sky over the world of the Bloody Sun, but the authors who have been inspired over the decades by Marion Zimmer Bradley’s favorite world. It will be released on June 3, 2014, to celebrate Marion's 84th birthday.

Diana L. Paxson is one of the writers who was inspired by Marion Zimmer Bradley. In addition to the Chronicles of Westria and historical fantasies such as The White Raven and the Wodan's Children trilogy, she continued Marion's Avalon series, most recently with Sword of Avalon. She is also the author of 86 short stories, including contributions to most of Marion's anthologies. Her story takes place a generation after the events in "The Motherquest" and "A Season of Butterflies".

Deborah J. Ross: How did Marion Zimmer Bradley influence your writing career?

Diana L. Paxson: I made the mistake of taking Creative Writing in college-- a mistake, because although it did teach me something about structure and style, the goal was to write literary fiction, which I found a dead bore, and my stories showed it. As a result, I gave up on the idea of writing for the next ten years. It was not until I had married Jon DeCles, who had been unofficially adopted into the Zimmer family, and gotten to know Marion herself, that it dawned on me that real people (i.e people who liked the same kind of books I did) could actually write them.  When I finally managed to complete a novel, Marion was kind enough to read and critique it. I cried. Then I rewrote it. Several times, actually. But Marion continued to encourage me, and so I didn't give up. Since everyone else in the family was writing too (except for my sister-in-law Tracy Blackstone, who was our agent) we ended up with a sort of extended-family cum writers' colony, with some amazing discussions around the tea-table.

New York report...a busy week!

Lambda Literary Awards, a micro-report: The award ceremony last night was filled with glamour, fellowship, humor, and tears (especially the video montage, "The Book That Saved My Life.") Saw a few friends, met some others. Did not win, but losing to Melissa Scott (who was pioneer and inspiration to a generation) (and Ann Griswold) counts as a honor. Now I can forever say I am a Lambda Award Finalist!

The Heir of Khored, the final volume of my epic fantasy trilogy, is now on sale! (At your local bookstore or the usual online venues.)





On SFSignal, I collected responses from some of the authors in Stars of Darkover about how Marion had influenced their careers. The "guest roundtable" is live today.

Stars of Darkover is available in print edition, with ebooks to follow shortly. I guess the different editions go live at slightly different times.




Over on Far Fetched Tales you can listen to a free podcast of my short story, "Nor Iron Bars," from Sword and Sorceress.

INTERVIEW: Steven Harper on Stars of Darkover

STARS OF DARKOVER – not just the glorious night sky over the world of the Bloody Sun, but the authors who have been inspired over the decades by Marion Zimmer Bradley’s favorite world. It will be released on June 3, 2014, to celebrate Marion's 84th birthday.


Steven Harper is the pen name for Steven Piziks, a name no one can reliably spell or pronounce. Marion Bradley bought his very first short story for Sword and Sorceress IX way back in 1990, and his keyboard has been clattering ever since. He's written some twenty novels over the years, including The Silent Empire series and The Clockwork Empire steampunk series. Steven also teaches English in southeast Michigan.  When not writing, he plays the folk harp, dabbles in oral storytelling, and spends more time on-line than is probably good for him.   


Deborah J. Ross:  How did Marion Zimmer Bradley influence your writing career?

Steven Harper: Marion forced me to learn how to write women.  Back in the early 90s, when I was a new writer, about the only short fiction market for the sword-and-sorcery stories I wanted to write was Marion, and she wanted strong female characters.  So I learned to write strong female characters, and I sold her more than a dozen stories over the years.  She also taught me how to be a professional--writing daily, accepting criticism, understanding how to deliver what a reader (and editor) wants, and seeing writing as a business as well as an art.  As a result, when I sold a novel, the first person I called was Marion.  "Help!" I said.  "I need an agent!"  She laughed and made a recommendation that led to the agent I have to this day.