"JOE WHEELER IS
AMERICA'S KEEPER OF THE STORY"
-Dr. James Dobson, Focus on the Family

It’s hard to believe, but Christmas in My Heart is now the longest-running Christmas story series in America. For 13 years now a new collection of heart-tugging Christmas stories has faithfully appeared every fall. Somewhere along the way, we suddenly realized that collectively this Currier & Ives series (each book sports a Currier & Ives cover) houses the most significant collection of the world's most beloved Christmas stories that exists today. It is for this reason that at virtually every book signing we experience a run on the complete collection. And no one wants to be without the newest one!

It happened at a Barnes & Noble signing in 2003. A woman standing by my table asked me if I'd ever heard of a certain Christmas story that she'd been seeking for a very long time. I thought a minute, then pulled a book out of the stack in front of me, found a certain page, held it out to her, and asked, "Is this it?"

"Yes!" she almost shouted. "I must have this book!"

Minutes later she said, "I hate to ask you this–I'm almost certain I'm asking the impossible–but I've searched even longer for another story, one I first heard when I was a child. Have you ever heard of ---?"

I pulled another book out of the stack, found the page, and held it out to her. "This is too much," she said, struggling to retain her composure. "I've got to have the entire set, no matter what they cost!"

-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.