Joe L. Wheeler
Joe Wheeler’s writing career started in the fall of 1992 with a collection of
heart-tugging stories called Christmas in My Heart, a series that he has
become well-known for. Joe Wheeler has been called everything from "Keeper of
the Story" to "Father Christmas." He has been a frequent guest on Dr.
James Dobson’s radio show "Focus on the Family", and today is considered to be
one of America’s leading story anthologizers, editing collections for nine
publishers: Doubleday/Random House, WaterBrook/Random House, Guideposts, Focus
on the Family, Tyndale House, Harvest House, Review and Herald Publishing
Association, RiverOak Publishing, and Pacific Press Publishing Association.
When asked how he got started, Wheeler tells interviewers that it all dates
back to being home-schooled by a remarkable woman, Barbara Leininger Wheeler,
his mother (both a teacher and a missionary) in Latin America. His mother,
an elocutionist of the old school, memorized thousands of pages of stories,
readings, and poetry, and frequently recited in public. But her specialty
was the old-time, sentimental, Judeo-Christian short stories. And his
mother poured herself – and her stories – into her son, inoculating him with a
terminal case of the ‘storyitis virus.’
Wheeler has a bachelor’s degree in both history and English from Pacific
Union College, a master’s degree in history, a master’s degree in English from
California State University, and a Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt
University. Today, Wheeler is senior fellow for cultural studies at the
Center for the New West in Denver, Colorado, and professor emeritus of Columbia
Union College in Takoma Park, Maryland.
Wheeler and his wife, Connie, make their home in the Rocky Mountains of
Colorado where they receive 200 inches of snow a year.
