Maria Simons

Maria Simons
Born	January 6
Gender	Female
Pronouns	She/her
Occupation	Book editor, consultant
Works on	The Wheel of Time (book series) The Wheel of Time (TV series)

Maria Simons is an American book editor. From 1996, she worked as an editorial assistant to Robert Jordan and Harriet McDougal. Simons has helped review several potential changes to storylines in the television series.

General overview

Simons knew both Jordan and McDougal through family and friends, and started working for Jordan in 1996 after a chance encounter between her husband and McDougal on the street. She mainly helped with fan-mail and filing, but helped organize his notes from the seventh novel, A Crown of Swords  (book spoilers!), and began editing from the eighth novel, The Path of Daggers  (book spoilers!). After Jordan passed away, Brandon Sanderson relied heavily on Maria and her fellow editorial assistant, Alan Romanczuk.

Along with Harriet McDougal and Alan Romanczuk, Simons is credited as the editor and co-author of Jordan's posthumous book The Wheel of Time Companion  (book spoilers!), which was released in 2015.

Rafe Judkins has stated multiple times that Simons has been a huge help on adapting The Wheel of Time book series for television, saying that Simmons and McDougal have been "hugely helpful for maintaining the truth of the series and always keep [Judkins] honest when it comes to things that change too much". Along with McDougal and Sanderson, Judkins said that Simmons has "been [a] huge [help] in checking [the writing team] and helping [them] go back to the drawing board on changes" and also approving changes.

Quotes

Excited to share the news! Legal issues resolved. WoT will become a cutting edge TV Series. Official word coming soon--Harriet @Dragonmount

Twitter, April 28, 2016

Kitty Rallo with Dragonmount

On to Amazon's TV adaptation of The Wheel of Time. Obviously Harriet has watched it. Have you watched it?

Maria Simmons

Oh yes.

Kitty

Overall thoughts?

Maria

Like Harriet, I had a difficult start to it. Although I sat and watched [the first three episodes] straight through. Up way past my bedtime. And the next day I felt like I had run a marathon, I was just like... oh. And Harriet asked me what I thought of it, and I said, "I don't know." And, you know, I waited for the next one to come out, and then it was like, "Andy, I think we need to rewatch the first three before we go on, because I don't... I want to see what I really think." And that time it was like, "Oh! Yeah! Yhis is great!" And there were moments where it's like, "Yes! Yes that is so cool!" So I enjoyed it.

Kitty

Any character portrayals you really enjoyed?

Maria

Daniel Henney as Lan. I love him. He is fabulous.

— Interview with Dragonmount, May 4, 2022

Gallery

Maria Simons interview with Dragonmount at JordanCon, May 4, 2022

Trivia

• Simons is famous among fans for her poker face when asked about the series, especially concerning potential spoilers when the series was still being released.
• Her knowledge of the book series is extremely extensive. In response to the popular phrase "RAFO" (Read and Find Out) when Jordan was asked about future events of the series, a variant was coined: MAFO (Ask Maria and Find Out).

Navigation

Crew
Rafe Judkins Showrunner Lorne Balfe Composer Sarah Nakamura Consultant Harriet McDougal Consulting producer Brandon Sanderson Consulting producer Season 1 cast and crew • Season 2 cast and crew • Season 3 cast and crew • Writers • Directors • Musicians • browse all crew

External links

• Maria Simons  (book spoilers!) on the Wheel of Time book series Wiki  (book spoilers!).
• Follow Maria Simons (@marialsimons) on Twitter