Dan Simmons is an American author most widely known for his Hugo Award-winning science fiction series, known as the Hyperion Cantos, and for his Locus-winning Ilium/Olympos cycle. Dan is one of the few novelists whose work spans the genres of fantasy, science fiction, horror, suspense, historical fiction, noir crime fiction, and mainstream literary fiction. His books are published in 27 foreign counties as well as the U.S. and Canada.
Background
Though Dan Simmons was born in sedate Peoria, Ill., in 1948, Simmons's childhood was anything but sedentary. His father, Robert, was a manager for the Sun Electric Corporation and sold automotive testing equipment. Because of his father's job, Simmons's childhood was a peripatetic one. He and Wayne, his younger brother, moved across much of the Midwest (Des Moines, Iowa; Chillicothe and Brimfield, Ill.) with their parents before settling in Pittsboro, near Indianapolis (an older brother, Ted, had already moved out of the house). "My favorite years were spent in Brimfield," Simmons recalls. One of his most popular novels, Summer of Night (Putnam, 1991), a coming-of-age/horror novel, took its inspiration from that idyllic time. "It was always at our house where the kids in the neighborhood congregated; always my mom who dragged lemonade or sandwiches out to the ball diamond after eight hours of dusty baseball," says Simmons.
Education
Dan Simmons received a B.A. 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.In 1995, Dan's alma mater, Wabash College, awarded him an honorary doctorate for his contributions in education and writing.
Dan received his Masters in Education from Washington University in St. Louis in 1971.
Career
Dan Simmons 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.