Ann is a graduate of Vanderbilt University with a degree in history, holds a master’s degree in mass communications from the University of Georgia, and an MBA from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. A longtime reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, she covered education and culture before turning her focus to fiction. Her lifelong love of historical fiction and nonfiction—particularly the hidden stories that shaped pivotal moments—colors her work on the YA Max Sterling series and the novels she and Bill have collaborated on.
Bill is an award-winning journalist whose career began at a small-town newspaper under the mentorship of Pulitzer Prize winner Howard James. Though sports writing became his profession—its mix of human struggle, triumph, and heartbreak offering endless stories worth telling—his first love was always fiction. From the moment he opened a Hardy Boys mystery as a boy, he felt the pull of imagined worlds and the power of narrative to carry a reader across distance and time.
Bill and Ann began collaborating on fiction over fifteen years ago, trading pages and sharpening each other’s work late into the night. At first, it was simply for the joy of telling stories together, but what started as a private creative pursuit grew into a shared passion for storytelling. The stories grew bolder, the characters louder—until it became impossible not to share them.
Now, for the first time, their work is collected here under the name Ashley Simmons—a shared voice for the adventures, histories, and worlds they’ve built together.
