‘Big Door Prize’: Apple TV+ opens the based-upon series world to Louisiana writer M.O. Walsh

M.O. Walsh has used what was a bit of a concern for high school English teachers — his active imagination — as a path to a challenging and satisfying writing career.

The latest novel to emerge from the Baton Rouge native’s creative brain, “The Big Door Prize,” is now an Apple TV+ series. The first three episodes of the 10-episode season premiered Wednesday, and a new episode will debut each Wednesday thereafter.

According to IMDB, the story centers on the residents of the small town of Deerfield, where one day a magical destiny-predicting machine pops up in their grocery store.

Although he’s always enjoyed crafting fiction, Walsh, now a 46-year-old married father of two, initially aspired to a musician’s life. He graduated from Episcopal High School in 1994 and received his bachelor’s degree from LSU in 1998. Realizing he wasn’t musically talented enough to make it a career, he leaned in to his literary side. Earning a master’s in literature from the University of Tennessee and a master of fine arts in creative writing from Ole Miss followed. He returned to LSU as an instructor. Now an associate professor at the University of New Orleans, he directs the Creative Writing Workshop MFA Program in creative writing, as well as leading The Yokshop Writers’ Conference in Oxford, Mississippi, each summer.

Here, Walsh lets us in on more about his life as a Southern writer.

When did you realize you wanted to be a writer?

I always enjoyed writing fiction. … I didn’t foresee it as something I would dedicate my life to until I was in my early 20s and recognized that I was not a good enough musician to make a go of that, and nothing else besides writing gave me the same level of challenge and satisfaction.

What were some of your favorite books growing up?

“Choose Your Own Adventure” and Edgar Allan Poe when I was young. Then in college, I came across writers like Zora Neale Hurston and William Faulkner. Then in grad school, I read people like Lewis Nordan and Aimee Bender and Toni Morrison and George Saunders and that changed everything for the better.

What are you reading currently? Who are your favorite authors?

It’s impossible to list favorite authors as they each serve a different purpose for me. Some I may read for their imagination, like Italo Calvino. Some I may read for their humor, like Chris Bachelder. Others for their incredible prose, like Jesmyn Ward. Sometimes I just want a good page-turner like Megan Abbott. Books are like music to me, in that way. I cue up different songs depending on my mood.

What inspired the plot of “The Big Door Prize”?

I originally had the idea for this back in grad school, probably around 2004 or so. I wrote it as a short story for my first book, “The Prospect of Magic.” I think I’ve always been interested in the idea that most people probably have something they would be really good at but have no idea just because they’ve never tried it. The greatest guitar player in the world, in other words, may have never picked up a guitar because they were not encouraged to or didn’t have the access or cultural incentives to. So, I wondered what people would do if a machine could tell them what they would be great at. Would they drop everything and pursue that idea, even if it had never occurred to them before? What if it was something they had always secretly wondered about or wanted to try? Or, what if it told them something that they didn’t want to know? What if it told them something that might upset their happy life? That’s when the idea really got interesting to me.

Walk us through the process of the novel becoming a TV series.

I have a film agent in Los Angeles who pitches my novels to various producers and TV/film writers for adaptation. Everyone was incredibly sharp and had great ideas for adapting it, but when I met with David West Read it was like our minds were running the exact same course. I was already a fan of his work on “Schitt’s Creek” and since that show was coming to an end, he was looking for a new project. It was a great combination of timing and shared sensibilities about the kind of art we both enjoy. The parts of my novel that were important to me were also important to him and so I felt confident that any changes would be in service of making a great TV show and not anything that would go against the overall message of the novel.

It looks like you were involved during filming. What did that entail? When and where was the season shot? How much time did you spend there?

I currently serve as a producer on the show, (which is filmed in Atlanta) so I am able to go to the set and interact with the cast and crew. I decided early on that I didn’t want to be involved in the scriptwriting process beyond the initial vision and show arc that David West Read and I discussed. I know some writers want to have control over everything, but I had already written a book that I was proud of that wouldn’t change no matter what happened on the show. So, allowing people who are actually really skilled at writing for television to write the episodes enabled the show to open up in ways that I likely wouldn’t have thought of.

When can we expect another book?

I am currently working on two different novels, but these things take years. I’d rather get it done right than get it done quickly.

How has growing up in the South influenced your writing?

I think I was exposed to good storytelling at a young age, just listening to friends and family. Also, since so many great writers like Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy, etc., came from the South, it didn’t seem like an odd concept to want to be a Southern writer. The way it affects my writing now is that it gives me focus. I grew up here and live here and, every day, see things I both want to celebrate about Louisiana and things that I think are in dire need of change.

Actor Chris Dowd (“Bridesmaids,” “This is 40,” “Family Tree”) is among “Prize’s” cast. How was the experience of working with him?

Chris is the perfect fit for the main character, who is someone you can’t help but root for. He is funny but also vulnerable and can take you from laughing at him to feeling deeply for him in an instant. Watching him and all of the other actors work has been one of the really surprising results of this process.