The Department of English and Comparative Literature’s very own J. Ross McDonald Distinguished Professor of English, Daniel Wallace, will be giving this winter’s commencement speech on December 11. Wallace said he plans to provide graduates with “instructions on how to become yourself.”
Prof. Wallace was the director of the DOECL’s Creative Writing program for 11 years, and is the author of six novels, including Big Fish (1998), Ray in Reverse (2000), The Watermelon King (2003), Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician (2007), The Kings and Queens of Roam (2013), and most recently Extraordinary Adventures (May 2017). He’s published two children’s books, dozens of short stories and essays, and is an illustrator whose drawings have appeared in books, newspapers and magazines all over the world. His seventh book, This Isn’t Going to End Well: The True Story of a Man I Thought I Knew, will be published by Algonquin Books in April 2023.
His essays and interviews have been published in The Bitter Southerner, Garden & Gun and Our State magazine, where he was, for a short time, the barbecue critic. His short stories have appeared in over fifty magazines and periodicals, including Tin House, One Story, Glimmer Train, and The Georgia Review. His stories have been recognized in Best American Short Stories.
Read more about Wallace here: http://danielwallace.org/.
