Whenever someone says 'writing can't be taught,' Dan begs to differ and has the track record to prove it. Eleven and twelve-year-old students in Simmons' regular 6th-grade class averaged junior-year in high school writing ability according to annual standardized and holistic writing assessments. He also worked as a national language-arts consultant, sharing his own 'Writing Well' curriculum which he had created for his own classroom. During his years of teaching, he won awards from the Colorado Education Association and was a finalist for the Colorado Teacher of the Year.

His last four years in teaching were spent creating, coordinating, and teaching in APEX, an extensive gifted/talented program serving 19 elementary schools and some 15,000 potential students. He then worked in elementary education for 18 years-2 years in Missouri, 2 years in Buffalo, New York-one year as a specially trained BOCES 'resource teacher' and another as a sixth-grade teacher-and 14 years in Colorado. in English from Wabash College in 1970, winning a national Phi Beta Kappa Award during his senior year for excellence in fiction, journalism and art.ĭan received his Masters in Education from Washington University in St. Dan Simmons grew up in various cities and small towns in the Midwest, including Brimfield, Illinois, which was the source of his fictional 'Elm Haven' in 1991's SUMMER OF NIGHT and 2002's A WINTER HAUNTING.

Hyperion cantos