Sims has worked for the past five years for the Courier's parent company, Silicon Valley Community Newspapers (SVCN), as a feature writer for the Los Gatos Weekly-Times and the Saratoga News. Among her credits is a first-place award in the community service category of the California Newspaper Publishers Better Newspapers Contest for a story that took an in-depth look at senior services in Los Gatos. The story and follow-up reporting resulted in the creation of an ad hoc committee to look at the town's delivery of services to seniors and eventually to the creation of a senior coordinator position and a more fully developed senior center.

A former social worker, Sims spent time in both the Cupertino and Sunnyvale communities as a case worker for seniors and disabled people and also placed children in foster homes. When she had children of her own, she left her social work career to stay home with them.

When they were older, she decided to pursue her love of writing and went to San José State University, where she earned her master's degree in English with a creative writing emphasis.

Before joining SVCN, Sims worked for a time tutoring at West Valley College and later taught English and ran an English-math computer lab at Mission Community College. While at Mission, she started the Mission Express, a student newspaper.

Although she has been writing for a number of years, Sims says, the social worker in her is alive and well.

"Social work is about people," Sims adds. "What I love about writing is the stories about people; I love finding these stories. It was one of the things I really enjoyed when I was doing social work."

About her decision to become an editor, Sims says: "I love the creative environment at SVCN, and I'm especially excited about our moving in the direction of civic journalism. There's also a part of me," she adds, "that is ready to be a mentor to young writers."

Contact Sandy Sims at 408.200.1055 or via email ssims@svcn.com.