L.J. Simpson was born in Wolverhampton, England in 1956. He worked primarily in the steel industry until 1990 when he embarked on a fairly radical change of direction, moving to Japan where he opened a small English language school. Married with two grown up children, work still takes up a great deal of his time. The remainder he divides up between taking long walks by the sea with his ever faithful border collie, building model tall ships and writing.