Margaret Weis - Early Life

Early Life

Margaret Weis was born in 1948 in Independence, Missouri, and later attended the University of Missouri. She discovered heroic fantasy fiction while in college, “I read Tolkien when it made its first big sweep in the colleges back in 1966. A girlfriend of mine gave me copy of the books while I was in summer school at MU. I literally couldn’t put them down! I never found any other fantasy I liked, and just never read any fantasy after Tolkien.” She graduated with a bachelor's degree of Arts, and went to work for a small publishing company in Independence and became an editor there. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Weis wrote children's books, including a biography of notorious frontier bandits Jesse and Frank James. Weis wrote about subjects such as computer graphics, robots, the history of Thanksgiving, and an adventure book written at a 2nd-grade reading level (intended for prisoners), but eventually decided she needed a change.

Soon she discovered what would become her real career: “I did see the beginnings of the D&D game — all of the little books — but was pretty much occupied by marriage, kids, and a career, and just didn’t pursue it.” Eventually, she saw an advertisement for an editorial position at TSR in Publishers Weekly and sent in her resume.