Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Simonds frequently published lifestyle and nature journalism for magazines such as Canadian Geographic,[1] Saturday Night and Equinox.
The book is based on a cache of letters Simonds found in her attic, written in 1919 by an inmate of Kingston Penitentiary to a young woman who lived on the edge of the quarry where the prisoner did hard time.
Simonds pieced together the story from the 79 letters, some written on toilet paper and scraps of calendar, and including four from the young women.
The Convict Loverreproduces the letters interspersed with the story of incarceration inside Canada's most notorious prison and the struggle for human connection.
In August 2012, she published a collection of flash fiction, The Paradise Project in a limited edition book with uncut pages, hand-set and printed on a hand-operated 19th century printing press, with endpapers made by paper artist Emily Cook, using plant material from Simonds's garden.