To a writer of fiction, life experiences are grist for the mill.  Watermelons, main streets, steak restaurants, water moccasins, and colorful small-town personalities can loom larger than life in the eyes of a young boy, and stir the man.  Hence, a childhood spent in Alabama became the inspiration for Daniel Wallace’s critically acclaimed novels.  In this program, we meet this award-winning Birmingham native, and travel with him through Alabama, where we discover the people and places, which spurred Daniel's stories. We also come to understand how a likable, good-natured fellow, who earned a living for more than 10 years designing refrigerator magnets, becomes a household name when his creative writing is suddenly embraced by Hollywood.

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Our cameras catch up with Daniel at 5 AM on the set of the film adaptation of his 1998 novel, Big Fish, directed by Tim Burton and starring Albert Finney, Danny DeVito, Jessica Lange, and Ewan McGregor.  Tim Burton has given Daniel a cameo role in the film, and Daniel’s having his beard shaved off for the part.  The film’s producers, Academy-award-winners Richard D. Zanuck and Bruce Cohen, explain what it was about Daniel’s novel that caught their attention. Daniel’s agent, Joe Regal, laughs as he recounts the 15 publishers who turned down Big Fish, and how sorry they are now.  As we follow Daniel through the day, we learn how he has developed a unique relationship with all the film’s key players, whose jobs are to help translate Daniel’s ideas to a visual medium

We also journey with Daniel to Cullman, Alabama, and meet the people and places - aunts, grandparents, childhood houses and a family steak restaurant - that inspired his fictional towns.  In Birmingham, we speak with his high school English teacher, Betty Caldwell, who first encouraged him to write.  His mother, Joan Wallace (who still lives in the house where Daniel grew up) recalls the creative notes he slipped under her door each night after she went to bed.

Today, Daniel Wallace is well-know in many circles.  Strange for an artist who, until age 24, was ashamed to admit that he wanted to write professionally.  “It sounded so cliché.  My father was not happy, but there was nothing I could do about it,” Wallace says.  “When I finally admitted that I wanted to write professionally, it felt like I was coming out of the closet. The creative process is all mysterious to me.  But I’ve found out more about myself during this documentary.”