Bradley, Marion Zimmer

The science fiction and fantasy author Marion Eleanor Zimmer was born in East Greenbush, near Albany in New York. As a child she loved books and opera, and she made up her own stories before she could write. She began to take an interest in science fiction as a teenager and she wrote her first novel, inspired by Vincenzo Belllini's opera Norma, when she was still at high school. She did not have the means to become an opera singer; instead she enrolled at the New York State College for Teachers in 1946 and continued to study there until 1948. She took up her studies again in the 1960s and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Hardin Simmons University, Abilene, Texas. She continued her studies at the University of California, Berkely, graduating in 1967 with a degree in English, Psychology and Spanish Literature.