Native American Authors

Stephen Graham Jones
, 1972-

Blackfeet

Born in 72, grew up on Elvis, even have some memories of being four year old and my mother holding me up above the crowd at one of his concerts how there was just a sea of popping flashbulbs, this shiny guy way up front grew up all over Texas, mostly West Texas, mostly in a place too small t even have a post office. learned farming and ranching from both sides of my family who told me not to do what they did, to use my head instead of my back. bit m tongue off in the third grade, had it sewn back on, spent a lot of time just watchin people. played Danny Zuko in a production of Grease that fell apart in the sixt grade. had read every Louis L’Amour, Conan and Stephen King by the time I was freshman in high school. played just lots and lots of basketball, but then got kicke out of school enough that I finally got the hint, quit, thought pool was maybe m calling. it wasn’t. neither were Ford trucks. finally snagged a diploma throug alternative school and – surprise – got a free ride my first year of college, thanks t my mother. the one who took me to Elvis. she knew, I think, that if I just got there I’d get hooked on the learning. she was right. I was a philosophy major, took som writing classes, then bounced up to grad school. never to teach, to be a professor but to snag whatever craft tricks I could, smuggle them out to horror and scifi an fantasy and westerns, each of which I was in love with at the same time. my firs publication was my first semester doing my MA work, I think. a story called "Paleogenesis, circa 1970." BLACK WARRIOR REVIEW. discovered Thomas Pyncho and Philip K. Dick soon after that; have no clue how I ever pretended to have gotte along without them. wound up finally at Florida State, snagged a PhD there, the lucked into getting my dissertation published. back then it was called FOR THER NEEDED NO HORSES (a Kafka-line). by the time the book got published, it would b THE FAST RED ROAD, A PLAINSONG. was working in the warehouse at Sear’s at tha time, moving fridges all day. with my back, yes. which was soon to be trashed stranding in the land of deskjobs. to celebrate FRR’s publication, my wife and I ate plate of fried zucchini at a sit-down restaurant. it tasted very good. my next nove was ALL THE BEAUTIFUL SINNERS. it’s not my second book, just my second published I wrote five between FRR and ATBS, I think. one of them THE BIRD IS GONE: MANIFESTO, came out right after ATBS. have written a few since then, too. can’ seem to stop

Return to Native American Authors Home