Joe Wheeler:
AMERICA'S FAVORITE HOLIDAY TRADITION
interview by
Mike Nappa
If
the truth be told, one doesn’t really “interview” a storyteller like Joe
Wheeler.
Instead, one only poses a question or two and then waits in wonder as the stories begin to flow from the heart and mind of the man. Such is the case this 2001 Christmas season, when Joe was kind enough to share a few more stories with the readers of FamilyFans.com.
For the
uninitiated, Mr. Wheeler has become a Christmas griot of sorts; a fount of
favorite stories to read and share during the holidays. He published his first
collection of tales, Christmas in My Heart (Review and Herald Publishing) in
1992. That book became an annual tradition, and a decade later he’s published
the 10th book in that best-selling series---along with a new book of
all his original stories, The Twelve Stories of Christmas.
Curious what
know more about the man and the vision behind those stories? Then listen in as
we visit awhile with “America’s Favorite Holiday Tradition”…
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Joe Wheeler on How It All
Began…
The story behind [my Christmas Books] takes me way back to
December of 1989, when we were living in Annapolis, Maryland, and I was
Professor of English at Columbia Union College in Takoma Park, Maryland.
It had been a long hard week and one of my English majors,
a coed, asked if she could come to our home for the weekend, wishing to escape
dorm regulations and cafeteria food. I checked with my wife and she said yes.
Well, fast-forward to that Friday evening. It was snowing
outside, and we were sitting by the fireplace. I was exhausted and looking
forward to a restful weekend. But across from me sat the coed, a quizzical look
in her eyes.
Suddenly she asked me, “Dr. Wheeler, have you ever
thought of writing a Christmas story?”
Lazily, I answered, ‘Yes, I’ve thought of it.”
Quickly, she retorted, “Well, why don’t
you?”
I answered, still unaware of my doom, “I will --
someday.”
Then she bored in for the kill: “Why don’t you write it
tonight? I want to proof your story.”
Unfortunately for me, she was in my Creative Writing class,
and all semester long, I had mercilessly assigned story after story to her and
the class. Now, she had the nerve to reverse roles on me. I squirmed,
desperately anxious to escape her hook. But she would have none of it. I hoped
that God, in His great mercy, would grant me writer’s block, but He ganged up
on me, too, giving me a plot.
So, all weekend long, she grabbed my hand-written pages as
fast as I completed them, scribbled on them, and handed them back for my
responses.
And thus was born “The Snow of Christmas.”
I gave copies to friends, family, and students. That proved
to be a mistake because the next year people asked me, “Are you going to write
another Christmas story this year?” The result was “The Bells of Christmas
Eve.”
Then came an acquisitions editor at Review and Herald
Publishing who asked me what I’d been writing lately.
I answered, “A couple of Christmas stories.”
“What kind?”
“Oh, the kind that are Christ-centered rather than Santa
Claus-centered.”
“Yes?”
“And the kind you can’t read without crying.”
She laughed, then responded, “Only two?”
I answered, “But I’ve been collecting them all my
life.”
And so was born Christmas in My Heart. We never
expected there to be another, so there was no number on the book. That was the
beginning -- in 1992.
Every year since then I’ve continued to write another
story to include in the annual Christmas in My Heart anthologies.
Since then, Doubleday/Random House and Tyndale House/Focus
on the Family have joined Review and Herald in publishing these annual
tear-jerky story collections.
Joe Wheeler on The Twelve Stories of Christmas (RiverOak Publishing)…
Not
long ago, I received a call from Greg Johnson, my agent at Alive Communications,
Inc. He asked this question: “Joe, how many Christmas stories have you
written?”
I did a quick count, then answered, “eleven.”
“That won’t do. There needs to be twelve.”
“Twelve for what?” I shot back.
Then he told me that RiverOak Publishing was interested in
pulling together in one book all the Christmas stories I had ever written -- but
The Eleven Stories of Christmas didn’t have a very good ring to it.
There had to be twelve.
So, over the following month or so, I wrote the twelfth,
“Evensong.”
In this book, for the first time, I tell the entire story of my personal Christmas journey; how that first collection evolved into a best seller series that did so well I had to leave teaching in order to keep up. Then, taking each story in sequence, I take readers behind the scenes to what caused me to write it, what was different about it, responses to it, etc.
So, in the end, this is a book I never expected to see published, lo those twelve years ago. Yet, here they are -- the result of the good Lord’s leading. Directly so, as I never touch pen to paper without asking God to give me the plot, thus the stories come from Him rather than me. Whatever blessing people may gain from them I thus attribute to God. The research had to do with retracing (in my journals) the writing process of each story.
The impact on me personally? Without question, it made me
intensely aware that God, as master choreographer of the universe, took time out
of His hectic schedule to script my own story, to take me on a journey I had no
intention of taking, to a career I had no intention of choosing (graphic
modern-day evidence of the truth of Psalm 139). It has been a deeply humbling
process: “Praise God for such divine condescension!”
Christmas for me is now all-year-long . . . and has taken
over almost my entire life.
Joe
Wheeler on Christmas in My Heart Volume
10 (Tyndale House Publishers)…
So,
what’s the story behind Christmas in My Heart 10? Each year since
1992, (when the first Christmas in My Heart story anthology was
published by Review and Herald Publishing), I have asked myself a sobering
question: Is this collection in any way inferior or less powerful than those
that have gone before? I always shake in my boots before I answer it for
long ago I committed myself to bringing the series to a halt should the answer
ever be in the negative.
But this year, I added a second question: Is this
collection the very best we have ever done? It needed to be for this is a
tenth anniversary collection. What joy I felt when I re-read the manuscript,
pretending I wasn’t me. How would I respond? Quite simply, I concluded with
the conviction that God had indeed led in the selection: it was the best one
yet.
Untold hundreds and hundreds of hours went into the
sleuthing of the stories that are pure gold. Normally, for every story I
consider 5 star, I reject a hundred that are less than that. That extra special
story has some sort of magic in it that defies description. It is either there
or it isn’t. It brings a lump to the throat, a tear to the eye. This is why my
son (who is an advertising copywriter) has long suggested that my books ought to
be shrink-wrapped with Kleenex. :-) A five-Kleenex book being the ultimate story
powerhouse.
I have spent a lifetime searching out such stories and the
authors who most consistently wrote them. What amazes me is how many story
anthologists choose stories not for their emotive power but on the basis of who
wrote them: If the author is critically well received, then any story s/he
wrote makes for a good collection. I couldn’t disagree more with that
contention! Heretically, I don’t believe there is such a thing as a great
author -- only great stories. Even “great” authors such as Twain, Tolstoy,
and Hugo occasionally wrote stories that leave the reader cold. No writer
consistently hits every story out of the park. This is why, if I have two
stories on my desk at the same time, one by a famous author and one by a virtual
unknown, neither will have the edge: the power of the story itself will be the
determining factor.
Joe
Wheeler on the Illustrations for His Books…
Most readers mistakenly assume that the illustrations came
with the story. Rarely is this true. Instead, it is a veritable Labor of
Hercules for each book. Over the years I have gradually accumulated a vast
library of old illustrations (mostly woodcut, and most at least a century old).
First, I sketch out the story line (sex and approximate age of each character),
pets, setting, etc. Then I proceed to leaf through book after book (all fragile
and difficult to replace), searching for THE illustration for each story. For an
anthology the size of Christmas in My Heart, this is usually a six-week
job of 10-14 hour-days. I may go days without finding a perfect match, before I
turn a page and stop, “Aha! Just the woodcut for that story!” As we have
turned the millennium, more and more I sense a hunger for the more serene past,
for the woodcut; thus the illustrations have proven to be as big a drawing card
as the stories themselves.
Joe Wheeler’s Final
Thoughts to His Readers…
[By reading my Christmas books], I hope the readers will
gain a true sense of what Christmas is all about. It is not about sales, not
about commercial hype, not about mere acquisition of things. Rather, it is about
giving without thought of receiving (or even being acknowledged), it is about
giving to those less fortunate than we, it is about giving of self rather than
giving of money or things. It is about remembering in Whose name we do all this.
Additional thoughts to readers? I’d say, “Read only
fire-in-the-gut books, those born through an author’s or editor’s passion. All
else is rehash and a waste of time.”
Read stories that take you somewhere where you’ve never
been before, that make you a kinder, more loving, more empathetic person than
you were before you read them. Life is too short to read anything that fails to
do this.
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