Janni Lee Simner Books in Order

Janni Lee Simner was born in New York City and grew up on Long Island, the kind of kid who could disappear into a book so completely that the rest of the room fell away. She was writing early, too, filling notebooks and making poems in elementary school. She has spoken openly about being bullied through much of elementary and middle school, and about how fantasy books became a haven. Reading gave her refuge, and writing gave her a way to make sense of the world around her.

Fantasy came first.

As she got older, writing stayed with her. She moved to St. Louis, attended Washington University, and studied both biology and English and American literature. After college she worked in the university's publications office by day and wrote at night. Around that time she sent a story to an anthology edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley, heard the simple advice to write a page a day, sold that first story, and then ran straight into the rejections that taught her how much there still was to learn.

She kept going. Critique groups helped. So did stubbornness. In later interviews, Simner said that learning to focus her big imagination, and learning to push past shyness, were both part of becoming a published writer.

Her early books for younger readers included the Phantom Rider novels, starting with Ghost Horse, a horse-and-haunting story set in Arizona. Later she published Secret of the Three Treasures, a funny middle grade mystery that was reissued as Tiernay West, Professional Adventurer. Even in those books, you can see some of the things she returns to again and again: brave young people, uneasy magic, and places that feel alive enough to shape the story.

Those interests deepen in the Bones of Faerie trilogy, made up of Bones of Faerie, Faerie Winter, and Faerie After. The trilogy is remembered for its dark fairy tale mood and post-apocalyptic edge, dropping readers into a world where magic is feared and the natural world has turned strange and dangerous. Her standalone novel Thief Eyes takes a different route, carrying a missing-mother mystery to Iceland and weaving in saga material, old spells, and a strong sense of place. Readers who like myth, travel, and unsettling fantasy usually find plenty to hold onto in both.

Place matters to her.

Simner has lived for years in Tucson, Arizona, a landscape she has described with real affection, and the Southwest shows up again and again in her work. Alongside the novels, she has published more than 30 short stories for kids, teens, and adults. Her story Temples won a 2016 O. Henry Prize, and she has also written nonfiction about writing, including Finding Your Sense of Place and Doing What You Love.

She also served as an inaugural writer in residence for the Pima County Public Library, which feels like a good fit for someone who remembers what books can do for a shy kid. Simner lives in Tucson with her husband, writer Larry Hammer. Her career has moved across age groups and forms, but the thread through it stays pretty steady: young people facing the strange, and finding courage there.