Author and Musician Dan Hollifield

Dan Hollifield was born in November of 1957 at almost the same moment that Sputnik II was launched. However, the two events are not, in fact, related. His father was a machinist, graduating from the General Motors Institute in the mid 1950s. After fleeing the harsh Michigan winters for a return to the families ancestral home, Dan's father began working in Oak Ridge, TN making toys for the physicists to play with. Dan's mother is an artist specializing in oils, china painting, glass painting, and multimedia home-crafts.When the Standardized Aptitude Tests were introduced in Tennessee elementary schools, Dan was revealed to have the reading level of a tenth grade student. Unfortunately, he was only in the third grade at the time.In the fourth grade he was allowed to go to the school library for the first time, where he checked out two books. Jules Verne's Journey To The Center Of The Earth and An H G Wells Omnibus which contained five of Wells' most famous novels. One more Standardized Test occurred later that year, and fourth grader Dan had risen to a twelfth grade reading level, with a timed reading speed of 400 words per minute. However, he has never been good at any sports, other than dodgeball. Even later than that, his family moved yet again, this time to Athens, GA. He has lived in or near Athens for the remainder of his life.