“Big Fish” author visits Lincoln Park for master class

Novelist Daniel Wallace encouraged students to read, write and be curious about the world around them.

“Care about things. Listen and be inquisitive, but read and write,” Wallace said.

Students at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School were treated to a master class with the author of the best-selling novel “Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions.”

Wallace spoke throughout the day to middle school students, freshmen and sophomores and juniors and seniors, hosting three separate master classes that included a talk and question-and-answer session.

Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center will debut “Big Fish” April 20-May 6 in the Main Stage Theater. The musical was adapted into a funny, fanciful and heartwarming, new Broadway musical that has been compared to “The Wizard of Oz,” “The Odyssey,” and “Music Man.” The performance has a cast of 34 and features original costume and props from Broadway.

Wallace is the author of three children’s books and six acclaimed novels, including one released last year called “Extraordinary Adventures.” He is the J. Ross MacDonald Distinguished Professor of English at the University of North Carolina, his alma mater, where he is director of the creative writing program. He is from Birmingham, Ala., also known as the “Pittsburgh of the South” from its steel-manufacturing days.

Wallace told students he spent years writing, working a few part-time jobs while struggling to achieve his goal of getting published.

“If you want to become a lawyer or a doctor, the path to that is prescribed for you. You know exactly what you need to do to achieve your goal, but with an artist, it’s different for everybody so you have to invent your own path—you have to create your own path.”

His dad wanted him to get into the family business of importing and exporting, but he decided not to because he didn’t feel passionate about the work.

“Anything that you do anywhere, your success and your happiness is determined by the amount of passion that you have for the thing that you are doing.”

Writing was his goal and his fallback plan.  He read “how-to” books on writing fiction and started typing with a goal to write a novel and a collection of short stories by the time he was 30. After 10 years of limited success and earning just a few hundred dollars, Wallace almost gave up at age 34 but decided to write a book for himself.

“I started to write a book that I felt was one that I’d love. Before this, I realized my mistake was that I was writing books that I thought other people would like. Even though I loved writing, I was creating story ideas that weren’t really compelling to me.”

He had just had a son and wanted to be able to show him, “this is what I did for 12 years of my life…I was writing, and this is the book that I finally wrote that I loved.”

Over the course of a year and a half, Wallace wrote “Big Fish,” a title he came up with before having the book to go with it.  He sent the finished product to his agent, who tried to get it published through 10 to 15 publishers, only to be turned down. Wallace finally suggested sending the book to a small publishing company that had just opened two miles from his house. They bought the book. Wallace was about 37 at the time.

“You can imagine how happy I was,” said Wallace, now 59. He says it’s “unbelievable” he’s marking the 20th anniversary of “Big Fish,” published in 1998.

From there, everything took off. Someone in Hollywood read the book and wanted to make a movie out of it, he said. Director Tim Burton ended up doing the motion picture, filmed in Alabama, and Wallace has a cameo appearance. While doing the movie, the writers and producers thought it would make a good musical. They started writing the musical in 2003 and finished nine years later.

Wallace said the Lincoln Park production is “the closest that you will get to seeing it on Broadway.”

“The sophistication and acting chops that are going to be brought to it are astounding. The stories that are told through this musical are impossible to believe, and yet you believe them. It’s a beautiful thing to look at. A lot of the set is original from the Broadway production and even though I’ve seen this show several times in different incarnations, this one is by far the most sophisticated and deeply felt version.”

“That is one reason I’m so excited to be here, to talk about it, to be a part of such an incredible production and show,” he added.

Students asked Wallace everything from how he got the idea to write “Big Fish,” to whether he ever gets “writer’s block.” His light-hearted answers were peppered with jokes and applause.

“I think it was very fantastic to see one of my childhood inspirations in flesh and blood,” said seventh-grader Emma Smith, who watched the “Big Fish” movie with her mother.

Emma thanked Wallace for writing the book, and asked how he stayed motivated after failing for so long.

“It’s really helpful to fail a lot,” Wallace said. “If I had success when I was younger, it might have changed me.”

Wallace will host a VIP Reception during opening weekend.  Learn more about this fantastic storyteller whose tall tales are flush with classic myth, magical realism and a touch of the extraordinary.

Tickets to the show and VIP Reception are available by calling 724-576-4644 (option 2 for the box office) or online at www.LincolnParkArts.org.