Critical recognition has included the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and making the shortlist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for her novel Off Keck Road (2000).

Six months after she placed the baby for adoption, Schieble's father died, and she then wed Jandali and gave birth to Mona.

[7] Simpson described herself as a good student as a child but was also "a clown" and "a smart aleck" who used to make jokes in class.

[1][2] In 1986, Schieble was contacted by the son she had given up for adoption, Steve Jobs, who had recently lost his mother to lung cancer.

[3] In 2001, Simpson started teaching creative writing at UCLA; she also has an appointment at Bard College in New York state.

I think it takes a long time before a crisis—like AIDS—enters the culture to a point where responses exist in a character, where personal gestures are both individual and resonant in a larger way.

A Regular Guy (1996) explores the strained relationship of a Silicon Valley tycoon with a daughter born out of wedlock, whom he did not acknowledge.

[9][10] Off Keck Road (2000), portraying decades in the lives of three women in the Midwest, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize.

It explores the complex relationships, issues of class, and perspectives of two women, Claire, a European-American composer in her 30s and mother of one son, and Lola, her immigrant nanny from the Philippines.