Literary Associates
It was the Golden Age of Indiana Literature (1871-1921). The
literary scene was peopled with authors and poets whose endeavors
fueled Indianapolis as a major center of publishing in the Midwest,
rivaling the New York houses. Riley's Indiana circle included authors
Booth Tarkington, Meredith Nicholson, Mary Hartwell Catherwood,
and Lew Wallace, poetess Evaleen Stein, journalists Hamlin Garland
and George Ade, and editor Hewitt Howland. He was an active
participant of the Western Association of Writers which met
annually in northern Indiana. Non-hoosiers such as Rudyard
Kipling, William D. Howells, George Cable, Eugene Field, humorists
Bill Nye and Robert Burdette, and historian John Clark Ridpath
were also friends. Riley wrote feverishly during the 1870s and 1880s,
sometimes on scraps of paper. His position as columnist at the
Indianapolis Journal (1877-1885) provided him the opportunity to
publish his poetry under a variety of pseudonyms. The poems
written during this period would translate into a remarkable
publishing record in the 1890s.