CHICAGO -- Rikk Dunlap calls it "uplift-erature."
The term, referring to stories that leave a person feeling good, has become his mantra, his guide and his ticket onto the Hallmark Channel.
Christmas Under the Stars
7 p.m. Saturday
Hallmark Channel
It may seem odd that a man who has seen the dark side of life, having endured alcoholism and recovery and the loss of his job at age 56, would strive to produce work that lets in the light. But it works for him. And, now he knows for sure, it's working for others.
Dunlap's yet-to-be-published novel, The Christmas Tree Lot, was recently made into a movie, renamed Christmas Under the Stars, by the Hallmark Channel. It premieres at 7 p.m. Saturday as part of the Hallmark Channel's 10th Anniversary Countdown to Christmas series.
Though Dunlap, a 57-year-old maintenance worker at Homewood-Flossmoor High School in suburban Chicago, has only seen a two-minute promotional clip from the film, he said seeing his characters brought to life "is fascinating." "They're moving and interacting with each other and calling each other by the names I gave them," he said.
Dunlap, who has lived in Park Forest, Ill., since he was in fifth grade, says the underlying premise for his story was a simple one -- that each of us has something to learn as well as something to give.
It was a suburban holiday tradition, the annual Christmas tree popup shop on Sauk Trail in Richton Park, that inspired Dunlap to pen a holiday tale. When he worked downtown, Dunlap said, he'd pass the lot twice a day. The trailer would show up sometime in November, along with the tent and the trees. "I love the holidays and seeing that just always got me into the Christmas spirit. I kept saying I have to write a story. I don't know what, but I have to write a story," he said.
"Then one year, I just got into it. I started writing and writing and I created all the wrong characters and then the right character came along. And as soon as he came along the story took on a life of its own," he said.
"My story starts with an investment broker, Nick (Jesse Metcalfe), who squanders some money and loses his job because of it. He happens to meet Clem (Clarke Peters), this old man who runs the Christmas tree lot," he said. The two characters are polar opposites; Clem is a humble, wise old man and Nick a cocky, know-it-all kind of guy.
Working with Clem, Nick learns as much about people -- their dreams, their struggles, their imperfections -- as he does himself.
And, of course, there is romance. Nick ends up meeting Julie (Autumn Reeser) through her 10-year-old son. The experience helps Nick make connections that had been missing in his life.
How much of himself is in Nick?
"A lot," Dunlap said. "They tell you to write what you know. But I write also what I want to know. I want somebody like Clem in my life. I want this wise older man who can teach me even at my age. I think it's important for older men and women to pass things down to boys and girls. Some of us have never had that.
"So I wrote Clem as somebody I would like to spend time with and learn from. It sounds odd because I wrote him and yet I learned from him," he said.
Dunlap admits he has a soft heart despite the hard life he has lived. Even today, he said, beneath the exterior of tools and tattoos lives a softie with a penchant for romance. "At the time I wrote this, I had lost my job after 37 years with an engineering firm. They called me in on a Wednesday afternoon and said, 'We got to let you get, a reduction in force.' So here I was at 56, wondering what am I going to do with my life," he said. He took a year off to write.
Twenty-eight years ago, while in recovery, he found writing. "I started using writing as a way to deal with issues coming up. A lot of times what I would do is sit down and write in third person, so I could still stay connected to the emotions and feelings but also disconnect and really get into it that much deeper," he said.
Today, as a member of a school maintenance crew, he mostly works indoors handling plumbing and electrical problems but pitches in to help line the field or perform other duties when needed. He also shares his experiences through motivational speeches, particularly to high school audiences. "I've shared some of my pitfalls and the circumstances I had to deal with. I'm always hoping somebody will learn from the things I was struggling with," he said. "High school is really tough sometimes and, depending on your background and your family and such, we don't always have the tools to deal with it."
Dunlap said although Hallmark owns the film, he will be mentioned in the opening credits and he retains the rights to the original 336-page manuscript. His agent is working on finding a publisher. "The crazy part about all of this," he said, is that English, although one of his favorite subjects in high school, was probably one of his worst.
"I still can't spell, but there's spellcheck," he said. "More importantly, I've learned, is that the imagination and the desire are there." Writing, he said, is a release. Having people actually read what you've written is the greatest compliment. "It can be a really hard world we live in. When somebody reads one of my novels I want them to walk away feeling good," he said. "I want them to say, 'That was nice.'"
Weekend on 11/14/2019