You can read a wealth of material about us in
the Interviews page
“Maynard & Sims write with a voice that is both
uniquely entertaining and profoundly disturbing. Their
fiction reflects classic old-school style themes told with a decidedly modern perspective. Creepy and wonderful stuff!”
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 is not, 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 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 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. Of course there are always a few short
stories written along the way.
Our CV goes out like this at present - BIOGRAPHY: LH Maynard & MPN Sims.Len Maynard & Mick Sims www.maynard-sims.comTheir first supernatural novel, Shelter, was published mass market in July 2006 by Leisure in USA. Their second, Demon Eyes, was December 2007 publication by Leisure, and the third, Black Cathedral, has been accepted, probably for January 2009. The fourth novel is underway. 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, and 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 and The Seminar, have been published in 2001, 2002 and 2003 respectively, with Double Act in 2007. 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
Michael@micksims.f9.co.uk
novels
“Not only has their influence shaped the supernatural fiction field in the
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