Conley, Robert J. 1940- (Robert Jackson Conley)

PERSONAL:

Born December 29, 1940, in Cushing, OK; son of Robert Parris and Peggy Marie Conley; married Evelyn Snell, March, 1978. Ethnicity: Native American. Education: Midwestern University, B.A., 1966, M.A., 1968.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Tahlequah, OK.

CAREER:

Writer. Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, instructor in English, 1968-71; Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, instructor in English, 1971-74; Eastern Montana College, Billings, coordinator of Indian culture, 1975-77; Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, assistant programs director, 1977-78; Bacone College, Muskogee, OK, affiliated with Native American studies program, 1978-79; Morningside College, Sioux City, IA, director of Indian studies, 1979-86, associate professor of English, 1986-90. Military service: U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Infantry, 1958-64.

MEMBER:

International Poetry Society, Centro Studie Scambi Internazzionali, Western Writers of America.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Spur Award for best short story (three times), Western Writers of America, first, 1988, for "Yellow Bird: An Imaginary Autobiography"; runner-up for Spur Award for best western novel, Western Writers of America, 1991, for Ned Christie's War; Spur Award for best western novel, Western Writers of America, and Best Book for Young Adults nomination, American Library Association, both 1992, both for Nickajack; U.S.A. West Literary Award in fiction nomination, PEN Center U.S.A. West, 1992, for Mountain Windsong; Oklahoma Book Awards finalist, 1995, for The Long Way Home; Spur Award for best western novel, Western Writers of America, 1995, for The Dark Island; inducted into Oklahoma Professional Writers Hall of Fame, 1996; Outstanding Alumnus of 1997, Division of Humanities, Midwestern State University; Oklahoma Writer of the Year, University of Oklahoma's Professional Writing Program, 1999; Beginnings of Horror Award, Ozark Creative Writers Inc., 1999, for Brass; Writer of the Year, Creative—Prose: Fiction, 1999, for War Woman, and 2000, for Cherokee Dragon; Cherokee Medal of Honor, Cherokee Honor Society, 2000.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Richard Cherry and Bernard Hirsch) A Return to Vision, Houghton (Boston, MA), 1971.

(Editor, with Richard Cherry) Poems for Comparison and Contrast, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1972.

(Editor, with Richard Cherry and Bernard Hirsch) The Shadow Within, Houghton (Boston, MA), 1973.

(Compiler, with Richard Cherry and Bernard Hirsch) The Essay: Structure and Purpose, Houghton (Boston, MA), 1975.

Twenty-one Poems, Aux Arcs Press (Springfield, MO), 1975.

Adawosgi: Swimmer Wesley Snell, A Cherokee Memorial, Blue Cloud Press (Marvin, SD), 1980.

(Editor) Echoes of Our Being, Indian University Press (Muskogee, OK), 1982.

The Rattlesnake Band and Other Poems, Indian University Press (Muskogee, OK), 1984.

Back to Malachi, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1986.

The Actor, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1987.

Killing Time, M. Evans (New York, NY), 1988.

Wilder and Wilder, Pageant (Memphis, TN), 1988.

The Witch of Goingsnake and Other Stories, foreword by Wilma P. Mankiller, University of Oklahoma Press (Norman, OK), 1988.

Colfax, M. Evans (New York, NY), 1989.

The Saga of Henry Starr, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1989.

Quitting Time, M. Evans (New York, NY), 1989.

Go-ahead Rider, M. Evans (New York, NY), 1990.

Ned Christie's War, M. Evans (New York, NY), 1990.

Strange Company, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1991.

Mountain Windsong: A Novel of the Trail of Tears, University of Oklahoma Press (Norman, OK), 1992.

The Way of the Priests, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1992.

Nickajack, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1992.

Border Line, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1993.

The Dark Way, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1993.

The Long Trail North, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1993.

The White Path, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1993.

The Long Way Home, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1994.

(With John Milius and Larry Gross) Geronimo: An American Legend (film novelization), Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1994.

To Make a Killing, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1994.

Crazy Snake, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1994.

The Way South, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1994.

Zeke Proctor: Cherokee Outlaw, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1994.

The Dark Island, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1995.

Captain Dutch, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1995.

Outside the Law, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1995.

The War Trail North, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1995.

War Woman: A Novel of the Real People, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1997.

The Meade Solution, University Press of Colorado (Niwot, CO), 1998.

The Peace Chief: A Novel of the Real People, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1998.

Incident at Buffalo Crossing, Leisure Books (New York, NY), 1998.

Brass, Leisure Books (New York, NY), 1999.

Cherokee Dragon: A Novel of the Real People, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2000.

Barjack, Leisure Books (New York, NY), 2000.

Fugitive's Trail, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2000.

Broke Loose, Leisure Books (New York, NY), 2000.

The Gunfighter, Leisure Books (New York, NY), 2001.

A Cold Hard Trail, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2001.

Spanish Jack: A Novel of the Real People, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2001.

Medicine War, Signet (New York, NY), 2001.

The Devil's Trail, St. Martin's Paperbacks (New York, NY), 2002.

Sequoyah, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2002.

Cherokee, Graphic Arts Center Publishing (Portland, OR), 2002.

Cherokee Medicine Man: The Life and Work of a Modern-day Healer, University of Oklahoma Press (Norman, OK), 2005.

The Cherokee Nation: A History, University of New Mexico Press (Albuquerque, NM), 2005.

A Cherokee Encyclopedia, University of New Mexico Press (Albuquerque, NM), 2007.

Cherokee Thoughts, Honest and Uncensored, University of Oklahoma Press (Norman, OK), 2008.

No Need for a Gunfighter, Leisure Books (New York, NY), 2008.

Author of poem "Some Lines in Commemoration of this Site: Little Maquoketa River Mounds, May 15, 1981," commissioned by the Iowa State Department of Transportation and published in permanent display at the mound site near Dubuque. Work represented in several anthologies, including From the Belly of the Shark, edited by Walter Lowenfowls; The Face of Poetry, edited by Laverne H. Clark; The New Breed, edited by Edward Oliphant; The Remembered Earth, edited by Geary Hobson; The Clouds Threw This Light, edited by Philip Foss; Songs from This Earth on Turtle's Back, edited by Joseph Bruchac; and Earth Power Coming, edited by Simon J. Ortiz. Contributor to periodicals, including Pembroke, Quetzal, Indian Voice, Blue Cloud Quarterly, Academy, and Cardinal Poetry Quarterly. Coeditor, Blackbird Circle.

SIDELIGHTS:

Native American author Robert J. Conley's oeuvre includes such diverse works as The Witch of Goingsnake and Other Stories, a collection of short stories with a supernatural motif, and Mountain Windsong: A Novel of the Trail of Tears, the tale of two young Cherokee lovers separated on the infamous Trail of Tears. Conley draws on the history and legends of the Cherokee people as inspiration for his fiction. The Way of the Priests and The Dark Way, for example, are fictional recreations of tribal legends. Speaking of The Dark Way, a Publishers Weekly critic found that Conley "is meticulous in his depiction of Cherokee life before they encountered Europeans, and his use of material from Cherokee oral tradition … reinforces the novel's authenticity." Some of the most interesting supernatural stories in The Witch of Goingsnake and Other Stories, in the opinion of World Literature Today reviewer Robert L. Berner, draw from Cherokee history, particularly "the conflict in Oklahoma during the resistance to the efforts of the Dawes Commission to divide and conquer the Cherokees and make Oklahoma statehood possible."

In 1838, the administration of President Andrew Jackson expelled the Cherokee from their ancestral lands in Georgia, forcing them to march into exile into the Oklahoma Territory. The march killed nearly one fourth of the tribe. Called the Trail of Tears, this march is the focus of Conley's novel Mountain Windsong. A Publishers Weekly reviewer called the novel "uncompromisingly accurate and authentic. As the tragic tale unfolds, the novel acquires power and resonance." Wes Lukowsky praised the book in a Booklist review, calling it "a timeless love story about young people buffeted by a changing world over which they have no control." Lukowsky adds that Conley succeeds in "celebrating the humanity and dignity of Native Americans."

War Woman: A Novel of the Real People is one of the books in Conley's "Real People" series. The story is set in 1580. Whirlwind is a Cherokee teen with powers that can tame vipers and control tornadoes. She is curious about the Spanish part of her heritage and travels to Florida to arrange trade between the Spanish and her village of New Town. Through the new relationship, liquor is introduced to the village, and some of the men, including Whirlwind's twin brother, become alcoholics. The village is attacked by a Spanish captain, and Whirlwind earns the name War Woman in protecting her people. She marries a Spanish trader and becomes wealthy after persuading her people to agree to the mining of gold from their lands by the Spanish. In her later years, Whirlwind uses her powers to protect her village from threats by the English settlers of Jamestown. A Kirkus Reviews contributor felt that "throughout the book, characterization lags behind a plodding plot, wooden dialogue, and little convincing historical detail." Library Journal reviewer Kathy Piehl wrote that the book "is historically interesting, but its lack of emotional engagement makes it less satisfying as a novel."

The Peace Chief: A Novel of the Real People is set in the seventeenth century. Young Puppy, of the Long Hair Clan, kills his friend Asquani, a fellow Cherokee from the Wolf Clan, during a fight with an enemy tribe. The Cherokee punishment for this crime is death, even though it was an accident, but Young Puppy escapes this fate by fleeing to Kituwah, a sacred town where no one can be killed. He must stay for one year to be forgiven. Young Puppy remains and becomes spiritually reborn as Comes Back to Life. He becomes Peace Chief during a period of threats from Spanish slavers, the French, and other Indian nations. Booklist reviewer Budd Arthur noted that Conley "provides an important glossary of Cherokee terms at the end of this evocative novel."

Harriet Klausner pointed out in a BookBrowser review online that Conley was commissioned by the Cherokee Nation to chronicle its history. "The entire collection pays homage to an intricate, complex way of life that is must reading for fans of historical novels," commented Klausner. In a review of The Peace Chief, a PublishersWeekly critic wrote that Conley's "detailed descriptions of Cherokee ceremonies and rich use of myth make the novel a worthy addition to his large body of work."

Brass is Conley's tale of a shape-shifter of Indian legend who is accidentally released by a project engineer. Brass is pursued, and Conley writes a considerable portion of the story through his eyes. Cherokee Dragon: A Novel of the Real People finds the Cherokee continuing the struggle to save their lands and way of life. Conley documents his own heritage for the reader and provides an update in the afterward. Budd Arthur wrote in Booklist that Cherokee Dragon "contains a fascinating history lesson, but it's also a whale of a good story."

The Cherokee Nation: A History is, unsurprisingly, the story of the Cherokee from their mythic origins to the present day. "Ordinarily, one does not think of the U.S. as having within its borders a number of other nations," wrote Gerald F. Kreyche in USA Today. Many Native American Indian nations, however, are recognized by the United States government as independent organizations, with their own laws and traditions. "The political reality of these as nations originally was an ‘accommodation,’ but it stuck," Kreyche continued. "Present-day Americans ought to know about their fellow Native American citizens and this book provides that kind of knowledge."

"The story of the Cherokees is one of resistance, persistence, and reinvention," declared Robert M. Owens in the Journal of Southern History. Conley's book begins with the origins of the Cherokee as a people, dating back thousands of years to the time when Native Americans arrived on the continent via a land bridge from Siberia. Based on linguistic clues, anthropologists believe that the ancestors of the Cherokee then migrated to the southern tip of South America before returning and settling in the lands that are now Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. When Europeans arrived in North America in the seventeenth century, the Cherokee were there to meet and trade with them. "From their initial contact in 1654 with Europeans," Owens continued, "the Cherokees maintained an on-again, off-again relationship with Great Britain until the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763. Disastrously, they remained loyal to the English during the American Revolution." Afterward, however, they became American allies in struggles like the Creek War (1813-14), created white American-style farms, and became prosperous. A veteran of the Creek War named Sequoyah even invented a Cherokee syllabary and created a written language for the nation.

Despite their alliance with the United States, the Cherokee were dispossessed by the Van Buren administration in 1838-39. Thousands were forced to leave their ancestral homes and move across the Mississippi River to what is now Oklahoma. Historians estimate that as many as a quarter of the Cherokee who were coerced on the Trail of Tears died during the migration. Further depredations continued throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the infamous Dawes Act (1887), which cut national lands into plots designed for individual farmers, and opened unassigned lands (designated "surplus") to white settlement. Often these plots held poor soil, unsuitable for subsistence farming, and the overall effect of the act was to increase Native American poverty. It was only after the adoption of a Cherokee constitution in the mid-twentieth century that the nation regained control of its own destiny. "The Cherokee Nation," concluded a contributor to the Bookwatch, "is a seminal work of superb historical scholarship and enthusiastically recommended for personal, academic, and community library Native American Studies collections."

A full-time writer and a member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokees, Conley lives with his wife, Evelyn, in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, which is considered the historic capital city of the Cherokee Nation.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Indian Culture and Research Journal, fall, 1999, Barbara J. Cook, review of War Woman: A Novel of the Real People, p. 236.

American Indian Quarterly, winter, 1994, Mary C. Churchill, review of Mountain Windsong: A Novel of the Trail of Tears, p. 130.

American West, June, 1989, review of The Witch of Goingsnake and Other Stories, p. S13.

Booklist, July, 1988, "Killing Time," p. 1782; April 15, 1991, "Strange Company," p. 1620; July, 1991, "Ned Christie's War," p. 2029; November 15, 1992, "Mountain Windsong," p. 579; November 15, 1998, Budd Arthur, review of The Peace Chief: A Novel of the Real People, p. 565; February 15, 2000, Budd Arthur, review of Cherokee Dragon: A Novel of the Real People; July 1, 2001, Eileen Hardy, review of Spanish Jack: A Novel of the Real People, p. 1978.

Bookwatch, July 1, 2005, review of The Cherokee Nation: A History.

Journal of Southern History, November 1, 2006, Robert M. Owens, review of The Cherokee Nation, p. 912.

Journal of the West, January, 1990, Donna Eichstadt, review of The Witch of Goingsnake and Other Stories, p. 98.

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 1997, review of War Woman.

Library Journal, June 15, 1990, Sister Avila, review of Go-ahead Rider, p. 132; March 15, 1992, Sister Avila, review of Killing Time, p. 146; September 15, 1992, Debbie Bogenschutz, review of Mountain Windsong, p. 92; September 15, 1997, Kathy Piehl, review of War Woman, p. 100.

Publishers Weekly, September 9, 1988, Sybil Steinberg, review of The Witch of Goingsnake and Other Stories, p. 118; October 5, 1992, "Mountain Windsong: A Novel of the Trail of Tears," p. 53; February 15, 1993, "The Dark Way," p. 212; August 22, 1994, "The Long Way Home," p. 42; November 9, 1998, review of The Peace Chief, p. 58; February 14, 2000, review of Cherokee Dragon, p. 288; July 10, 2000, review of Fugitive's Trail, p. 49.

Reference & Research Book News, August 1, 2005, review of The Cherokee Nation, p. 58; November 1, 2005, review of Cherokee Medicine Man: The Life and Work of a Modern-day Healer.

Reviewer's Bookwatch, February 1, 2008, Willis M. Buhle, review of A Cherokee Encyclopedia.

School Library Journal, May, 1998, Dottie Kraft, review of War Woman, p. 175.

USA Today, May 1, 2006, Gerald F. Kreyche, review of The Cherokee Nation, p. 81.

Wilson Library Bulletin, May, 1993, Barbara Scotto, "Mountain Windsong: A Novel of the Trail of Tears," p. 109.

World Literature Today, "The Witch of Goingsnake and Other Stories," p. 520; autumn, 1993, Howard Meredith, review of Mountain Windsong, p. 867.

ONLINE

BookBrowser,http://bookbrowser.com/ (July 29, 2008), Harriet Klausner, review of The Peace Chief.