About the Author

Deborah J. Ross writes and edits fantasy and science fiction. After her first short story in 1983 in Marion Zimmer Bradley's first volume of Sword & Sorceress, her short fiction has appeared in F&SF, Asimov's, Star Wars: Tales From Jabba's Palace, Realms of Fantasy, MZB's Fantasy Magazine, and many other anthologies and magazines. Two of her short stories ("Mother Africa" in Asimov's 1997 and "The Price of Silence" in F&SF 2009) were awarded Honorable Mention in Year's Best SF. She made her editorial debut in 2008 with Lace and Blade. Her most recent books include the Darkover novel The Children of Kings (with Marion Zimmer Bradley); Collaborators, an occupation-and-resistance story with a gender-fluid alien race (as Deborah Wheeler); and The Seven-Petaled Shield, an epic fantasy trilogy from DAW. She's part of the secret cabal of former SFWA Secretaries and a member of the online writer's cooperative Book View Café. Elisabeth Waters spent two decades working for Marion Zimmer Bradley and still works for the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust. She sold her first short story to Marion in 1980 for The Keeper's Price, the first Darkover anthology. 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 shares Marion's love of opera and has 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.