Daniel Wallace

Daniel Wallace (born 1959) is an American author. He is best known for his 1998 novel Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions. His other books include Ray in Reverse and The Watermelon King. His stories have also been published in a number of anthologies and magazines, including The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror.

Wallace was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and he has three sisters. He attended Emory University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studying English and philosophy. His first job was as a veterinary assistant cleaning cages. Wallace did not graduate from college until May 2008, instead taking a job with a trading company in Nagoya, Japan. He currently lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina with his wife and son.

Wallace states, of his childhood, that "I was completely average in every way. My childhood was the most uneventful part of my life, I think." He reports, however, that there was friction within his family, as in an interview he states:

After returning to Chapel Hill, Wallace worked for thirteen years in a bookstore and as an illustrator, where he designed greeting cards and refrigerator magnets. A running motif in his works are glass eyes; Wallace has stated in numerous interviews (including the one published in the back of the paperback edition of Big Fish) that he collects glass eyes. He continued to live in Chapel Hill with his wife, Laura, a social worker, and their son, Henry.

Of his political beliefs, Wallace has stated, "It is fair to say that I'm left of center. Far left." Wallace claims he is an agnostic in terms of religious beliefs, stating:

Before Wallace's most famous book Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions was accepted for publication, he wrote five novels which were rejected by publishers. Since then, his books have been translated into 18 languages, while Big Fish was made into a film by Tim Burton. In a 2011 article for Pure Movies, he wrote about how absurd he found it that Big Fish was the book that was adapted into a film when all his others have clearer narrative structures. His other books include Ray in Reverse, The Watermelon King, and Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician. His short stories have been published in a number of anthologies and magazines, including The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror.

Wallace says he tries to write everything he can, but mainly focuses on novels and screenplays.

Wallace believes that "art is a distillation of experience." He believes that "writing requires only a pen and paper, and not paint, brushes, canvases, nor expensive film or photographic equipment, so it’s seen as something ‘anyone can do.’"

Of his early writings, Wallace claims:

As a child he loved the science fiction novel Dune, by Frank Herbert. Wallace lists his favorite writers as Franz Kafka, Vladimir Nabokov, Italo Calvino, Kurt Vonnegut, and William Faulkner. Wallace also loves the novels Mrs. Bridge and Mr Bridge by Evan S. Connell.

Wallace was awarded the Harper Lee Award for Alabama's Distinguished Writer of the Year in 2019.

Wallace currently is a professor and lecturer in the English Department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. About his career as a teacher, Wallace has stated: