Alabama provides a sense of place for ‘Big Fish’ author
Daniel Wallace
Position: Award-winning Alabama-born writer, illustrator and educator whose very first book, the best-selling Big Fish: A Novel of Mythical Proportions, was adapted into a major motion picture and a Broadway musical. He’s since published five more novels, a memoir, a children’s book and myriad essays and short stories. His latest book, Beneath the Moon and the Long Dead Stars, is a collection of very short short stories that, since its release in May, has garnered rave reviews by critics and readers alike.
Background: A native of Birmingham, who despite living most of his adult life in North Carolina, almost always sets his funny, honest and often magical stories in Alabama. He’s currently putting the finishing touches on a forthcoming novel while also teaching his creative writing students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, drawing for the pure pleasure of it and learning to juggle.
Honors & Awards: Among his many literary and teaching awards, Wallace is a member of the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame and recipient of the 2019 Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer of the Year. His books have been translated into more than three dozen languages and his illustrations have appeared in many magazines and books including the Los Angeles Times and Vanity Fair Italia.
You moved to North Carolina some 50 years ago, yet most of your stories are based in Alabama. Why is this state such an enduring setting for your work?
I imprinted on Alabama. I was born there. I grew up there. I know all the backroads. I know the state. So this sense of place, which is so integral to any writer’s work — but I think especially a southern writer’s work — was provided by Alabama. Why go anywhere else?
In addition to Birmingham, what other towns have been settings for your stories?
My deepest connection other than the Birmingham area is Cullman, where my grandparents lived and where we spent a lot of time. Many of my books, from Big Fish to Watermelon King — maybe all of them — go through Cullman. You don’t necessarily know it as a reader. It’s only important for me to establish in my own head a place where the characters can exist. Little is more important than where we live, the place we call home.
When did you begin writing and why does it appeal to you?
I started writing in high school for the fun of it. I got real pleasure out of making things with words, and it’s still like that. I’m building things, like a carpenter, and I get a great deal of pleasure out of making something that is substantial, can take a little rain and wind and honor a reader’s idea of what a good story is.
Before becoming a best-selling author, you worked in a variety of other occupations — stoneware importer, veterinary assistant, refrigerator magnet magnate and bookseller among them. Did working in these jobs help form or inform you as a writer?
I think it’s essential for a writer to do things other than write. Experience the world so you can describe the world. The things that I did (outside of writing) have also been integral in making me who I am — finding out who I am by finding out who I’m not.
Beneath the Moon and the Long Dead Stars is a collection of very short “flash” stories. What makes this particular writing form special?
Short stories can be really powerful. It’s fascinating to me that you can write a story that is so short that still opens up a world of emotion in a reader. And they’re so short you can read one at a stoplight. Whether you should or not… that’s your business.
How does your work as an artist and illustrator balance with your work as a writer?
I think of my drawing as coming from a completely different place than my writing. I want to be the best possible writer that I can be; with my drawing I want to be the best possible seven-year-old drawer that I can be. I want it to be this place I go to for pure self-indulgent goofy pleasure. Having something that I can be bad at — to give myself permission not to be perfect — I’m very lucky to have that. I find it a lot harder to do that with my writing.
Can you offer any sage advice to aspiring writers?
Pay attention. Just pay attention to everything. To the people in your life, the world around you, and really see things. The closer you are to your own experience the closer you are to understanding what story really is: what it means to be alive.
Beneath the Moon and the Long Dead Stars, published in May by Bull City Press, is available in print and e-book formats. Wallace’s short stories, including four from this book, are also often featured on Troy Public Radio’s “Alabama Aloud” podcast hosted by Don Noble. — Katie Jackson
