Biography

Book signing at Ottakar's, Bishops Stortford, 2006

Len (1953) and Mick (1952) have been writing together for a long time. We met in 1964, aged eleven, at Ambrose Fleming Technical Grammar School in Ponders End, Enfield. We weren't friends immediately, that came later, when, aged 18, we had left school and started work - Len as a lapidary in London and Mick for Lloyds Bank. We both still work for the same employers. We began to talk one night, in the bar of the Crown & Horseshoes pub in Enfield, went for a long walk after closing time, and a life time of friendship was born.

Mick is married to Clare, Len isn’t married to anyone any more, and there are two children between us, Iain Maynard and Emily Sims. We both live in Hertfordshire, about 25 miles apart.

We began writing in 1972 with short horror stories that were either Pan Horror type stuff or very atmospheric mood pieces. Our first sales were in 1974, with Curtain Call to London Mystery Magazine for £7 and a second story, Benjamin's Shadow to Hugh Lamb for his Taste Of Fear anthology. Hugh has remained a lifelong friend.

Our writing history settles into four main periods - the early traditional ghost story period of about ten years from 1974: a middle period when we wrote a lot without sending much off for possible publication. During this period we wrote and broadly destroyed about 11 novels, and wrote numerous stories. This 'barren' period lasted about ten years from about 1984. The third period began around 1994 and is when we began again in earnest and happily continues to the present day. During this period most of the published work featured on this website, bar the novels, was written. The fourth ten year period began around 2004 with the publication of what currently is our last story collection, Falling Into Heaven. This phase is dominated by novels. We write supernatural thrillers but are branching out into crime and adventure as well.

“Maynard and Sims. Those are the guys who write ghost stories and traditional horror, full of quiet and subtle effects, whose work you describe as 'atmospheric' because you're too old and self-consciously macho to admit they scared the crap out of you.” Peter Tennant

WHC 2010 – Len, Hugh Lamb, Mick.

Our CV goes out like this at present –

Their first two supernatural novels, Shelter (2006), and Demon Eyes (2007) have been published by Leisure in USA. The third, Black Cathedral, was the first Department 18 book, published early 2009, and the fourth, Night Souls, the second Department 18 book, is a June 2010 publication. www.dept18.com

They have completed two supernatural thrillers and are currently working on the third Department 18 novel. They have also completed an adventure thriller and a crime thriller and are currently working on a third thriller. These may well come out under a pseudonym. www.michaeljamesleonard.com

Numerous stories have been published in a variety of anthologies and magazines, including the Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, the anthology, Strange Tales, which won the World Fantasy Award 2004 and the Del Rey anthology, The Children Of Cthulhu.

Collections include, Shadows At Midnight, 1979 and 1999 (revised and enlarged), Echoes Of Darkness, 2000, Incantations, 2002, two retrospective collections of their stories, essays and interviews, The Secret Geography Of Nightmare and Selling Dark Miracles, both 2002, one introduced by Hugh Lamb and the other by Stephen Jones, and Falling Into Heaven in 2004.

Novellas, Moths, The Hidden Language Of Demons, The Seminar, and Double Act, have been published in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2007 respectively.

They worked as editors on the first seven volumes of Darkness Rising, and the two annual Darkness Rising anthologies. They co-edited and published F20 with The British Fantasy Society. As editors/publishers they ran Enigmatic Press in the UK, which produced Enigmatic Tales, and its sister titles. They wrote essays for the Mark Chadbourn website At The World’s End.

Contact can be made at our Contacts Page.

And they can also be found at http://www.myspace.com/maynardsims

On Facebook, separately under Len Maynard & Michael Sims.

And they have a message board at http://www.horrorworld.org/massmarket.htm

They are mentioned at www.dept18.com

“Not only has their influence shaped the supernatural fiction field in the United Kingdom over the past couple of years, but now they are making significant ingress across the Atlantic.” Stephen Jones, editor Mammoth Book Of Horror series and many others.