An Interview with Charles Qualls

How did you come to write Time Well Spent at Bubba-Doo’s? What inspired you to delve into a different style of writing?

That’s probably a story that I still don’t believe entirely myself.

I had written a few op-ed pieces for Mark Wingfield at Baptist News Global. A news wire service. I was incredibly flattered when Mark urged me to write that type of content more often. But I said to him, “Mark, if I write op-ed pieces, then people respond with comments on the social media sites. Then I read the comments, and I just get annoyed. I know I shouldn’t, but I’m not bored enough to want to hear that stuff. What if I do something different? Like maybe talk about the intersections of culture, faith and the church… but do so in Southern Fiction short-stories?” Trouble was, I had never written anything like that. So, I tried my hand at it a couple of times here in my local, weekly newspaper columns. The immediate reaction was encouraging. Then, Mark published those stories and the Bubba-Doo’s series was off and running.

What do you hope lay people can take away from these stories? How does storytelling relate differently and connect with your audience?

One person has said that humans are so addicted to story-telling that even when our bodies go to sleep, our brains stay up all night telling us stories. Jesus taught in stories. Effective speakers do, too. So I hope readers will first be entertained. All the better if they pick up on whatever caused me to write the story. Some of these stories have a point or two to make. But not heavy-handedly. Others of them I wrote purely to amuse myself and anyone who might read them. If I entertain readers, cause them to laugh, cry or think, then we’ve had a good day together. Maybe they connect through these stories with something nostalgic. One friend even told me that Bubba-Doo’s showed her some relational elements of her life that she wished she had, but currently doesn’t.

In your introduction, you share that these stories are an amalgamation of truth, memories and fiction. How did you choose which memories/stories to focus on?

Normally, something in my current life will happen that pulls up a memory from earlier. I am blessed with an odd, detailed memory. Actually, that’s a blessing and a curse. But mostly a blessing. So, sometimes these memories or stories from my life will start to run inside my head like a video. Other times, though, something that is so strange or funny will happen right in front of me and I will know instantly whatever that was, it needed to be captured in a Bubba-Doo’s story. Because it was better than any fiction that could be made up. So, then I’ll incorporate that real-life happening into the made up world of these stories. Many of the characters and stories come from my childhood of growing up inside my Dad’s own country store. Others of them are inspired by people I admire, or don’t find so admirable, in my current life. And every season of life in between.

Can you talk a little about the structure of your book? Why did you put it together the way you did? What was the challenge of expanding the individual short stories into a book?

I think I don’t have the attention span to read or write in long forms. So, for instance anything novel length probably wasn’t going to happen. But all the way back to high school and college literature courses, the required readings I most enjoyed were the fictional short-stories. Works by people like Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner or Mark Twain. Up to this point in my writing, my other nine books were in what I would call a more utilitarian genre. If our publisher asked me to write a book on marriage or divorce, I would partner up with Bo Prosser and we would write on that topic and share resources. If they asked me to write in an ongoing Bible Study series, I would write books with ten sessions on some portion of the Bible. But when it came to something fun like this, something that was downright therapeutic to try, this just made sense to me. Short stories seemed like a good vehicle for me and for a culture whose attention span also seems to be shortening. I have mostly left them as they were originally published because they were already fairly long.

What was the most meaningful or surprising experience you had in the process of writing Time Well Spent?

Some of these entries in the Bubba-Doo’s series started with a story I wanted to tell. The Christmas story here in the book is an example. Or the story of an unlikely business alliance that happened in real life. Those stories wanted to be told. So, off I went. However, other times maybe I did have a theme I wanted to explore or a point I wanted to make. So, then I would find a storyline to fit that. I have been surprised at how some characters started off based on a real life friend or acquaintance, but grew into someone I got to shape a little bit. And who I genuinely came to love through revisiting them and expanding them over the years. I have also been surprised at the emotion of some moments. I have had times I found myself laughing so hard I had to take a break. Other times, though, I also was touched deeply by a turn a story took and occasionally had to push back from the keyboard to cry a little. The story of the “scholar” who visits home and isn’t welcomed too nicely by Stumpy is an example. That one became more tender the longer I wrote on it.

How did the requirements and challenges of preaching inform your writing? What does the writing process mean to you?

There is some overlap with preaching, especially in what little I grasp about the art and craft of story-telling. I think a good story has a journey to take, and may even have moments where I have to let my audience sit down and exhale for a moment if we are to keep moving forward. But when I was driven to write a story that might make a specific point or two, I knew from preaching that I needed to try to get my audience of readers interested in the topic and then tacitly suggest to them why that matters. You’ll see a little of that woven into the occasional story.

What nurtures your imagination? Outside of your ministry and writing, how do you enjoy spending time?

Travel has enriched my imagination. There is a huge, diverse world out here and I’ve been fortunate to visit some famous, iconic destinations. But mostly through mission trips, I’ve also had adventures in more obscure places worldwide. Collectively, they gave me a mirror into which I needed to gaze and explore how much of my understanding was pure Western enculturation and how much of my assumptions needed to be challenged. We also enjoy what I call “culinary adventuring.” That is, while we are traveling we’ll seek out unique, indigenous places to dine. Usually casual places, but not always. Food is art. Travel is instructive. But I also just use my eyes and ears. I’m always watching and listening. Then, my bizarre sense of memory will eventually call up something when I need an idea or a story prop. Once that memory gives me a device, I just take off and follow it. I have one friend to whom I’ll occasionally say something like, “Oh don’t you remember? I heard you say that to a group in a seminar you led down in Vidalia, Georgia in August of 1987.” Or, “Sure we’ve met for breakfast here at this restaurant before. It was in November of 2005. We worked on the big convention we were both planning for.” He calls me a freak. My wife calls me The Rain Man. I call it a gift mostly.

What will readers find waiting on them in this collection of the Bubba-Doo’s series?

Readers are going to get a bonus here they can’t get anywhere else. I’ll tell you about that in a minute. Ever since I got about a half-dozen or so stories into the online series, an occasional reader would ask, “When are you going to collect these up into a book?” I really had not set out to write a book at all. I was just enjoying telling these little stories one at a time. But I heard that question enough that I pursued the idea with Smyth & Helwys. By the way, there are already a handful of new stories released on Baptist News Global since I submitted the manuscript and all of this went into pre-publication. So, what’s the bonus? In this volume are two brand new, never published stories. In one of them, a Bubba-Doo’s regular is going to die. So, there’s a little bit of intrigue. Yes?

When did you know that the stories were finding an audience?

I think my friends were gracious from the get-go on social media. I would link each story to my social media as they were published online. Friends and family would comment. But what really got my attention were all the people I would meet at the CBF General Assemblies these last couple of summers. Someone nearby would see my nametag. Or, I’d get in the elevator with someone. Eventually, I would hear, “Oh… you’re the Bubba-Doo’s guy!” People from all over the country. That’s when I knew this thing had some little following.