Robert Conley
Robert J. Conley, Cherokee, was
born in Cushing, OK. in 1940. After finishing high school in Wichita
Falls, TX, he attended college there at Midwestern University
where he received his bachelor's degree in drama in 1966 and his
master's in English in 1968.
He has been Asst. Programs manager for the Cherokee Nation of
Oklahoma, Director of Indian Studies at Eastern Montana College,
Bacone College in Muskogee and at Morningside College in Sioux
City. Robert has also been an Associate Professor of English at
Morningside College and an Instructor of English at Southwest
Missouri State University and at Northern Illinois University.
His poems and short stories have been published in numerous periodicals
and anthologies over the years, including some in Germany, France,
Belgium, New Zealand, and Yugoslavia. His poems have been published
in English, Cherokee, German, French and Macedonian versions.
Robert's most unusual publication may be the poem, Some Lines
in Commemeration of this site: Little Maquoketa River Mounds,
May 15, 1981. The poem was commissioned by the Iowa State Department
of Transportation and published on a permanent display board at
the mound site near Dubuque.
His first novel, Back to Malachi, was published in 1986. Since
that time he has had 34 novels published, a collection of short
stories, several reprints, including 3 British editions, and 4
books which were recorded on tape. Robert also wrote the novelization
of a screenplay, Geronimo: An American Legend which was published
in the U.S. by Pocketbooks and reprinted in translation in Italy.
Conley is a member of the Western Writers of America and has won
2 Spur awards for his novels Nickajack and The Dark Island and
another Spur award for his short story Yellow Bird: An Imaginary
Autobiography, published in The Witch of Goingsnake. In 1997 Robert
was inducted into the Oklahoma Professional Writers Hall of Fame.
He is an enrolled member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee
Indians in Oklahoma.
He now lives in Norman, Oklahoma, with his wife, Evelyn, where
he writes full time.
