Robert J. Conley

December 29, 1940 – February 16, 2014 A great voice in Western Literature and advocate for storytelling by American Indian writers was stilled with the death of Robert J. Conley in February. From his earliest work in what became the Native Studies program at Eastern Montana University in Billings through decades of writing novels, history and poetry, Conley, a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, has not only told the stories of his tribe, but also nurtured other American Indian wr