Marella Sands on “Impossible Things” in REALMS OF DARKOVER

Realms of Darkover®, the newest Darkover anthology, will be released in May 2016. You can pre-order it at Amazon (and it will be available at other outlets soon). Here’s a contributor interview to whet your appetite!

Marion Zimmer Bradley’s beloved world of Darkover encompasses many realms, from glacier-shrouded mountains to arid wastelands, from ancient kingdoms to space-faring empires. Now this all-new anthology welcomes old friends and new fans to explore these landscapes of time and place, history and imagination.

Marella Sands says she was born in a yurt on a windswept plain in Outer Mongolia (thereby preparing her to write stories set in the Hellers), but one especially frigid winter convinced her to move somewhere she could enjoy central heating. These days, she spends her time teaching, traveling, and enjoying life with her husband and pets. She has recently become a fan of cricket and is in giddy anticipation of the next T20 World Cup, which will be held in India in 2016. Besides writing stories for Darkover anthologies, she has three books out from Word Posse, the most recent of which was Restless Bones, an anthology of dark fantasy and horror.

Deborah J. Ross: When and why did you begin writing?

Marella Sands: I was always writing things. Even when I was in trouble as a little kid, I'd write my mother notes about why I was angry and slip them under the door. Writing was always the most natural way for me to express myself.

Reading was also something I took to quite early on. My mother said she never tried to teach me to read; it was just always something I seemed driven to do.

It took me until I was 22 to realize that someone might actually pay me to write, and that the things I'd been doing during my down-time might be worth something (they weren't, actually). It took several more years and a lot of horrible manuscripts before I managed to acquire enough skill at storytelling to start selling my work.

DJR:  Tell us about your introduction to Darkover. What about the world or its
inhabitants drew you in?

MS: I think my dad had a used copy of Hawkmistress, and after he read it, I did. I loved it. From there, I read all the Darkover novels I could get my hands on, but I was always a little disappointed that the Ages of Chaos seemed to be ignored.