Daniel Wallace
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Brief Biography
Daniel Wallace is a native of Mountain View, Alabama, near Birmingham. Wallace initially pursued higher education at Emory University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but he left before graduating in order to live and work in Japan for two years. He then returned to Chapel Hill, took a job in a bookstore, and began writing in his free time. It took nearly fourteen years, a dozen published short stories, and five unpublished novels for Wallace to sell Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions to Algonquin Books for publishing. The novel was adapted for film in 2003, and Wallace himself makes an appearance in the film as a professor at Auburn University. He went on to write additional novels and also branched out to write children’s books. In 2008, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and he now teaches creative writing as the J. Ross MacDonald Distinguished Professor of English at Chapel Hill. He won a Harper Lee Award in 2019 and was inducted into the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame in 2023, the same year he published his memoir, This Isn't Going to End Well: The True Story of a Man I Thought I Knew.
Publications
Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions. North Carolina; Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1998; reprinted, 2013.
Ray in Reverse. New York; Penguin Books, 2001.
The Watermelon King. Boston; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003.
Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician. New York; Doubleday, 2007.
The Cat’s Pajamas. Oakland, California; Inkshares, 2014.
The Kings and Queens of Roam. New York; Gallery Books, 2014.
Extraordinary Adventures. New York; St. Martin’s Press, 2017.
This Isn't Going to End Well: The True Story of a Man I Thought I Knew. Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Algonquin Books, 2023.
Joint Publications:
The Largely Literary Legacy of the Late Leon Tolbert. New York; Crown, 1995.
Ray in Reverse. New York; Penguin Books, 2001.
The Watermelon King. Boston; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003.
Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician. New York; Doubleday, 2007.
The Cat’s Pajamas. Oakland, California; Inkshares, 2014.
The Kings and Queens of Roam. New York; Gallery Books, 2014.
Extraordinary Adventures. New York; St. Martin’s Press, 2017.
This Isn't Going to End Well: The True Story of a Man I Thought I Knew. Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Algonquin Books, 2023.
Joint Publications:
The Largely Literary Legacy of the Late Leon Tolbert. New York; Crown, 1995.
Themes
Daniel Wallace writes episodic novels set in the South that explore themes like magical realism, parent-son relationships, and mythology. He has also written short stories, children's books, and screenplays.
Publisher
Alabama Authors of the 19th and 20th Centuries, edited by Beverley Park Rilett, http://AlabamaAuthors.org
Collection
Citation
Wallace, Daniel, “Daniel Wallace,” Alabama Authors of the 19th & 20th Centuries, accessed September 19, 2024, https://alabamaauthors.org/items/show/667.