David and Michelle Baldacci (Photo courtesy David and Michelle Baldacci)
With his books translated into 45 languages, available in over 80 countries and currently 150 million sold, David Baldacci’s interest in adult literacy may seem self-serving. Did he and his wife, Michelle, create the Wish You Well Foundation to spawn more mystery novel readers?
Hardly. The couple, who have given millions to adult literacy programs around the country through their 20-year-old foundation, believe “literacy is the greatest tool you can give anyone,” David says. “People need higher literacy skills for many reasons: to enjoy a good book, to take better care of your family, for better job opportunities, to better understand issues and make good choices in the voting booth, and as a way to move upward economically.”
“Illiteracy really is pervasive throughout society on so many different levels,” Michelle says. “If you are not brought up reading, or thinking it’s important, that’s going to leave a hole in your life.”
Their efforts to patch that hole are the reason the couple is being honored this month by the Library of Virginia with Honorary Patron of Letters degrees, the agency’s highest honor. The Baldaccis, along with poet and educator Nikki Giovanni and award-winning children’s author Meg Medina, will be presented with degrees during the 26th Annual Virginia Literary Awards Celebration, being held at the library Oct. 14.
While their foundation helps people all over the world, the Baldaccis have a special place in their hearts for the students of Virginia Commonwealth University because David, his brother and sister are all VCU graduates. The strong connection to VCU and Richmond spurred the couple to establish the Baldacci Student Experiential Learning Endowed Fund, which offers direct financial support of up to $5,000 to rising juniors and seniors for self-designed activities or trips meant to broaden students’ horizons. The fund has become so popular and competitive with VCU students that the Baldaccis recently doubled the endowment to meet demand.
“Michelle and I did not want our names on a building,” David says. “We wanted to give students the means to do something different.”
“We are just amazed every year at just what these [recipients] can accomplish,” Michelle says. “It’s people doing such incredibly diverse things. Our goal is to help people expand their minds. If you travel, you grow. You have less prejudice, less judgement when you are out in new places, experiencing new cultures.”
Michelle learned that lesson from her own childhood. She was born on a Navy base, and the family relocated numerous times due to her father’s career with an oil company. A move from Detroit to Atlanta at age 10 shocked her. “I didn’t understand why in Georgia Black students couldn’t go to school with us — this was in the mid-1970s,” she says. “Segregation was supposed to be done, but it was not. … It was very confusing to me.”
Now a resident of Northern Virginia, David still loves the city he called home for many years. “I love the Fan, Shockoe Slip and Shockoe Bottom, just walking and people-watching,” the Richmond native says. “People ask me, ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ I can walk down Broad Street and get enough characters for a new book.”
Whether it’s walking the streets of Richmond or working out in the gym, David is always writing. “He writes in his head a lot,” Michelle says. “He can work anywhere, anytime. The creative process is not something he turns off or leaves at the end of the day.”
A prolific writer, David completes two novels a year. In his Amos Decker series, a brain injury has given his detective protagonist complete recall of all he sees. Is David similarly afflicted? “I do have sort of a very phenomenal memory capacity that served me well as a trial lawyer,” the former litigator admits. “It’s atypical for me to forget any detail about what I am writing because I’m there in the moment. In your head, you have to pull it out when you need to pull it out. I lose myself in these worlds which I created because they are important.”
Michelle adds, “People don’t understand he does all his own research. A lot of that is interviewing. There are reams and reams of notes and documents.”
Boxes of research and early drafts are kept in storage. He refreshes his memory with these bulky archives as needed. “I want to be consistent and make sure what I said in book three [of a series] is consistent with book seven,” David says. “I really had to become a journalist for all those interviews. I prepare for those interviews like they are legal documents.”
The couple, who met at a vegetarian barbecue even though neither of them are vegetarians, have been married for more than 30 years and have two grown children. When David’s first book was published, it was a shock to both of them. “He had been writing since he was a kid,” Michelle says. “He just always thought it would be his hobby.”
Nothing prepared them for the instant success that followed. When David proudly announced that he was getting his first book published, Michelle thought they were going to tap their savings to self-publish. Instead, multiple publishers pursued the book and screen rights. “Obviously, knowing the industry now, when you look back on it, this is just kind of a make-believe story because it just doesn’t happen this way,” she says. “You don’t all [of a] sudden have people in a bidding war for your first novel and then sell for a movie that next day. It really was kind of like a fairy tale.”
It wasn’t until his second book became a bestseller that David quit his day job. Coming off early success, he was writing three books a year while managing all the contracts, drafts, appearances and book signings. “All of a sudden the work had completely taken over our lives,” Michelle says. “I had to start putting my foot down. That’s when we got it down to two books a year.”
Cutting back didn’t stop David from becoming one of the country’s most successful mystery and thriller writers, a fact that still seems to surprise both of them. “Some days we still aren’t prepared for everything that goes on,” Michelle says. “It’s always a shock with these amazing awards that people are willing to give us. It’s a little overwhelming. I’m more worried that David remembers to take the trash out.”
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