Daniel Wallace

In a starred review, Publisher’s Weekly described Big Fish as “refreshing” and “original” and The New York Times described the bestseller as “comic and poignant.” Daniel’s recent collection of rousing flash fiction Beneath the Moon and Long Dead Stars was published in 2025.

Having explored several careers before finding success as a writer, Daniel has worked for a time as an import/export agent in Japan, a bookseller and continually as a self-described “professional doodler.” Many of his drawings have graced the occasional greeting card or refrigerator magnet and several make up the children’s book O Great Rosenfeld!, which he wrote and illustrated. His illustrations have also been published in The Los Angeles Times and Vanity Fair.

The astute viewer will recognize Daniel as the actor playing an Auburn University professor in the aforementioned Big Fish film adaptation. He is in fact the J. Ross MacDonald Distinguished Professor of English, and director of the Creative Writing Program, at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. He lives with his wife Laura Kellison Wallace in Chapel Hill. They have one son.