The Dragon And The Phoenix

About Lesley Sims

Lesley has written ever since she can remember. After winning prizes for English at school, she went on to study law at university because her mother insisted she had something to fall back on.

She qualified as a barrister but realised she didn't want to spend her life in a wig. She was also writing short stories when she should have been revising for her Bar Finals, another clue that she wasn't cut out for legal life. Instead, she joined a small publishing company and edited their directory of the legal profession.

In 1993, Usborne Publishing advertised for a fiction editor in their Oxford office and she leapt at the chance. She transferred to the London office in 1995, writing puzzle fiction and humorous history books. Her "Visitor's Guide to Ancient Rome", a spoof tourist guide to the city, won the Times Educational Supplement Senior Information Book Award in 2000. She is now a managing editor in charge of the Young and First Reading Series, Handbooks and Treasuries, among others.

When she isn't writing or editing, Lesley loves watching plays and films, learning to tap dance, taking long walks beside the Thames and playing her tenor sax in a jazz band. Her favourite colour is purple.