American astrologer, author and artist, currently owner of Starcrafts LLC of New Hampshire, which operates Astro Computing Services and publishes books under the imprints Starcrafts Publishing and ACS Publications. Simms began studying astrology in 1973, and has been a practicing astrologer for about 35 years (as of 2010). She holds professional credentials from National Council for Geocosmic Research and American Federation of Astrologers and served as Chair of NCGR 1999-2004.
Living in a small town through her youth, she was raised in a stable and supportive family. She graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1962 with a BFA degree, and taught art in Illinois public schools between 1962 and 1966. Her first marriage was to an opera singer with whom she traveled and moved frequently, including several years in San Francisco. where she was active as an exhibiting artist, and began her study of astrology. They had two daughters, Shannon in 1967 and Molly in 1969. After the marriage ended in the early 70s, Simms started a business, a metaphysical shop called Mystic Arts in Connecticut. There she met her second husband, James L. Jossick, a chemical engineer and business owner, with whom she had a third daughter, Elizabeth, in 1978; the couple divorced in 1985.
After a brief return to her Illinois hometown for several months, Simms moved to Florida with daughters Molly and Liz to take a job doing computer graphics for The Mark One Dinner Theater She had written her first astrology book by then. It was accepted by ACS Publications, and she also began doing free-lance cover art for ACS. During 1986, a relationship developed with Neil Michelsen that resulted in Maria moving to San Diego in the spring of 1987 to become ACS Art Director. She and Michelsen were married in October 1987. When he became ill and passed away May 15, 1990, Simms became CEO of ACS and served in that post for eight years.
In 1998, Simms and Jossick, while assisting Elizabeth to select a college, also decided to resume their relationship. Simms sold her interest in ACS and moved to New Hampshire to remarry Jossick. She continued to write, and resumed painting in oils. In 2008, dismayed at the decline of ACS under its new owners, Simms and Jossick purchased the assets of the company, and have since reactivated it in Epping, New Hampshire as part of Starcrafts LLC. They have published updated editions of the entire American Ephemeris series and several other astrology titles.
Simms has authored eight published books and portions of three others. All of them are astrology except the first, an art project book for young girls published in 1971. Three of them combine astrology with Goddess spirituality or Wicca. Simms is a Wiccan High Priestess with ministerial credentials from Covenant of the Goddess, and is also an ordained minister of Church of Religious Science.