For more than 30 years, bestselling author David Baldacci has built a career transforming ordinary places into harrowing settings and placing everyday people in extraordinary moral dilemmas. His work has been published in more than 45 languages and in more than 80 countries. Many of his books have also been adapted for television and film.
But, despite all this acclaim, Baldacci insists he’s still honing his work.
“Writing is a craft, and you’re always a lifelong apprentice,” he says. “You’re never going to master it, so your job is to, with each work, try to get a little bit better.”
Baldacci, 65, was born in Richmond and has lived in Northern Virginia for more than three decades. He was drawn by what he calls NoVA’s “vibrant community” and proximity to Washington, DC, a city that is a backdrop in his novels.
He also does extensive research for each book. At the Library of Congress, while touring the rare book vault for research on The Collectors, he listened politely as a librarian showed him Thomas Jefferson’s donated volumes. Inside his head, Baldacci was already plotting the librarian’s fictional demise.
By the time the tour ended, he’d figured out how to kill off the character in his book. Later, Baldacci learned the librarian proudly told visitors, “Over here is exactly where David Baldacci murdered me.”
The writer admits that once, while meticulously surveying Lafayette Park for his book Hell’s Corner, he murmured a little too loudly into his flip phone about a fictional explosion.
“OK, I think over here would be a good place to put the bomb,” he said to himself. A passerby shot him a look.
“You’re nuts,” the man said.
Baldacci paid him no attention; he was consumed by the novel’s next twists and turns.
A Fluid Process
Despite writing scores of blockbuster thrillers like Absolute Power, the Amos Decker series, and the forthcoming Hope Rises (out April 14), Baldacci doesn’t follow a particular process. He doesn’t have set hours or word counts. He prefers to allow ideas to evolve organically.
“I tend to write until the tank is empty,” says the prolific author, who’s a married father of two grown children. And he refills the tank by stepping away to bike, eat, travel, or just think.
What excites Baldacci most, even after three decades, is the beginning of a story. Those first chapters, he says, feel like standing on a diving board, and the pressure to jump in finally gives way.
“All of a sudden, words spread onto the page,” he says, “and it’s like this relief of, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got this now.’”
Fear, he admits, is part of the fuel. “I ask myself, ‘How can I scare myself? How can I take on something I haven’t done before?’” he says. “You need to write with a chip on your shoulder. I write best when I’m afraid I can’t do it, because that’s what lifts your game.”
He’s also fashioned a writing office of sorts in an unlikely place: a Greek eatery in Vienna. “The realization that he might be crafting his next bestseller within our walls inspired us to dedicate his favorite spot with a plaque [that says] ‘David Baldacci’s Remote Office,’” Plaka Grill owner and chef Peter Drosos says. “It’s a badge of honor for our little restaurant.”
In the Courtroom
Baldacci’s talent for writing traces back to his time as a DC trial lawyer. “The only arrows I had in my quiver were words,” he says.
He still remembers obsessing over the verb “flit” in a legal brief. When the judge echoed it verbatim in the ruling, Baldacci learned a lesson he’s never forgotten: words matter.
He sees the tools of an attorney and a novelist as remarkably similar. Add in his vivid imagination for placing noble characters in dire circumstances, and you have the makings of a bestseller.
Wish You Well Foundation
In other areas of his life, Baldacci’s sense of responsibility runs deep. He and his wife, Michelle, founded the Wish You Well Foundation to support literacy programs nationwide.
“For them, philanthropy isn’t about recognition — it’s about responsibility,” says Librarian of Virginia Dennis Clark, who leads the state’s archives and premier research library. “They believe influence should be used to strengthen communities, not to amplify ego.”
It’s an ambitious goal. The Baldaccis believe improving literacy can change the nation.
“If we get everybody reading at the level they’re supposed to be reading at, most of our social ills go away,” Baldacci says, noting that homelessness, poverty, hunger, and crime are all tied to illiteracy. “It’s a surefire way to turn around the fortune of this country.”
Paying it Forward
His generosity also extends to other writers. He often mentors emerging authors who seek his guidance.
“When I was struggling with my second book, he gave me the best writing advice I’ve ever received, telling me, ‘If it were easy, everyone would do it,’” says bestselling author Brad Meltzer, writer of legal and political thrillers like The Tenth Justice and The Book of Fate. “These days, I realize it wasn’t just writing advice. It’s how he lives his life.”
Baldacci’s efforts on behalf of the writing community extend even further. He appeared last summer before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property to speak about AI’s impact on authors and the publishing industry.
“He’s generous with his time and his success,” says Kristin Harmel, bestselling author of historical fiction like The Book of Lost Names and The Winemaker’s Wife. “It’s wonderful to see him so dedicated to the idea of paying it forward.”
A New Mission
Never one to rest on his laurels, Baldacci has taken on a new challenge to restore civil discourse. Partnering with the Library of Virginia and Virginia Commonwealth University, he and Michelle are helping to organize face-to-face town halls designed to remind people how democracy works.
“They envisioned an initiative that would create space for civil discourse — where disagreement isn’t something to fear, but an opportunity to learn,” Clark says.
The Baldaccis’ experiment aims to revive the kind of dialogue they believe is missing from social media. If Baldacci had a magic wand, he says, he’d wipe social media away. Instead, he proposes that people simply sit down and talk.
“Talk to people who maybe have different opinions than yours,” Baldacci says. “If you meet the people you may not agree with face to face and you talk to them politely and respectfully, I think you’ll find out you probably have more things in common than you think.”
Reading is Fundamental
For all his accolades — and fan letters from presidents, prime ministers, and even Dolly Parton — Baldacci measures success simply: He gets to wake up every day and do what he loves.
And the writer’s best advice for all of us, it turns out, isn’t surprising: read, read, read.
“It makes you a better person all the way around. It certainly did that for me, and that’s how I’ve tried to live my life,” he says, adding, “If you can lift yourself in a way that allows you to help lift other people, and they, in turn, can do the same for others, all of a sudden you have a pretty good place for the rest of us to live.”
Feature image by Allen Jones
This story originally ran in our April 2026 issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
