M. O. Walsh's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Oxford American, The Southern Review, and Best New American Voices, among others. His novel My Sunshine Away was a New York Times bestseller and winner of the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize. He is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Mississippi and currently directs the Creative Writing Workshop at the University of New Orleans.

EXCELLENT TRACK TO BUILD ON: The Big Door Prize garnered strong praise and early acclaim for M. O. Walsh from big names such as Daniel Wallace, Joshilyn Jackson, and Mary Miller. Walsh's debut novel, My Sunshine Away, had strong numbers for its paperback across all channels (netting more than 60,000 copies) and was a New York Times bestseller and Entertainment Weekly "Must List" pick, showing Walsh has a strong audience in the trade paperback format.STRONG INDIE AND LIBRARIAN SUPPORT: The Big Door Prize was an Indie Next Pick and Walsh is a bookseller favorite who has strong connections, particularly in the South. My Sunshine Away was both an Indie Next and Library Reads pick and was featured in one of Putnam's first-ever pre-pub tours.NEW DIRECTION WITH A BIGGER PREMISE: The Big Door Prize attracted similar readers as My Sunshine Away, but while Walsh's debut focused on a small-town dark mystery, this novel features on a bigger, more accessible idea. Here, he showcases the poignant humor and quirkiness of life, much in the vein of Anne Tyler, and has drawn in a wider readership.SOUTHERN REGIONAL APPEAL: Walsh beautifully captures day-to-day life in the South, particularly in small-town communities, and this novel resonates deeply with southern readers, with lots of local and regional media and publicity.PERFECT FOR BOOK CLUBS: With it's blend of warm-hearted humor, small-town antics, and well-wrought domestic suspense, The Big Door Prize is a major conversation starter and the ideal book for the paperback format, with an immediate appeal to a variety of book clubs.

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The New York Times bestselling author of My Sunshine Away returns with a gripping and heartfelt novel about a mysterious machine that upends a small Louisiana town, asking us all to wonder if who we truly are is who we truly could be.

What would you do if you knew your life's potential? That's the question facing the residents of Deerfield, Louisiana, when the DNAMIX machine appears in their local grocery store. It's nothing to look at, really it resembles a plain photo booth. But its promise is amazing: With just a quick swab of your cheek and two dollars, the device claims to use the science of DNA to tell you your life's potential. With enough credibility to make the townspeople curious, soon the former teachers, nurses, and shopkeepers of Deerfield are abruptly changing course to pursue their destinies as magicians, cowboys, and athletes including the novel's main characters, Douglas Hubbard and his wife, Cherilyn, who both believed they were perfectly happy until they realized they could dream for more....

Written with linguistic grace and a sense of wonder, The Big Door Prize sparkles with keen observations about what it might mean to stay true to oneself while honoring the bonds of marriage, friendship, and community, and how the glimmer of possibility can pull these bonds apart, bring them back together, and make second chances possible, even under the strangest of circumstances.