Robert J. Conley

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Robert J. Conley, a Cherokee from Oklahoma, is an acclaimed short story writer, novelist, historian and essayist who has won three Spur Awards from Western Writers of America [www.westernwriters.org]. He now serves as WWA’s vice president. Conley is the Sequoyah Distinguished Professor in Cherokee Studies at Western Carolina University and founding director of the school’s Tsalagi Institute. An inductee in the Oklahoma Professional Writers Hall of Fame and a recipient of the Cherokee Honor Society’s Medal of Honor, he helped start the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers & Storytellers [www.wordcraftcircle.org], which seeks to ensure the voices of native people are heard worldwide.

His Spur Awards came in 1988 for Yellow Bird: An Imaginary Autobiography, in 1992 for Nickajack and in 1995 for The Dark Island. His latest books are Cherokee Thoughts Honest & Uncensored (University of Oklahoma Press), A Cherokee Encyclopedia (University of New Mexico Press) and Cherokee Medicine Man: The Life and Work of a Modern-Day Healer (University of Oklahoma Press). Under an agreement with the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, Conley also wrote The Cherokee Nation: A History, which the University of New Mexico Press has released in paperback. Among his other novels are Windsong: A Novel of the Trail of Tears, Ned Christie’s War and No Need for a Gunfighter. Conley, who can be sarcastic and witty (sometimes in the same sentence), discussed his work in a recent interview with Wild West magazine.

What is the genesis of A Cherokee Encyclopedia?
I had an idea to write a book about all of the Cherokee chiefs for the three federally recognized tribes—the Cherokee Nation, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the United Keetoowah (Kituwa) Band. I fancied I would write a biography for each chief. I got into that a ways and realized I wasn’t going to be able to fill up a book, because there were a number of early chiefs about whom I could find no information. I had a contract with the University of New Mexico and told [UNMP Director] Luther Wilson the problem, and he agreed I could expand it into an encyclopedia. This allowed me to put in topics like clans, as well as celebrities other than chiefs.

What’s a favorite entry in your encyclopedia?
[Cherokee actor] Clu Gulager. He’s a good friend of mine now. I’ve been a big fan of Clu’s since the 1950s when The Tall Man was on television. I was watching an episode of the show, and my daddy said, “You know he is a Cherokee”—so I liked him better then.

How about Cherokee Thoughts? Are those essays you had worked on for a time?
Some of them are. They were fun to write. I would like to do more of them. I was just over at Brevard, N.C., today at the library and did a reading out of that book. I read most of the essay on Indian casinos and a short one called “Ricochet.” And I read “Grafters, Sooners and other Crooks.” When I wrote that one, my wife, Evelyn, tried to get me to leave it out of the book. She said, “We are going to have to leave the state before that book comes out.” Miraculously a job offer came about.

What type of writing do you most enjoy?
I would have said fiction, but now I like writing essays too, because you can come up with any topic and just sit down and start, well, not mouthing off…but whatever the writing equivalent of mouthing off is. It’s more like writing a novel than it is like writing history, the kind of nonfiction that requires research or getting interviews with other people, or having to wait for other people.

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