James Haley’s interest in writing began when he was a 5-year-old boy in Tulsa, Oklahoma; he began submitting his work to publishers while he was going to high school in Fort Worth. He experienced some early rejections, but persisted. “I had made up my mind that if I wasn’t published by age 20, I’d pursue a different career,” he recalls, but American Heritage published one of his articles just two months before the deadline. In the intervening years, he has written a dozen highly-regarded books, and says, “I’m one of the few people who have been able to make a living all my life, doing what I love.” Reflecting further, he laughs. "That is, if you call this living -- I've never had much money." He has resided in Austin since his college days.
Haley’s first published article was a biography of Jumbo, the famous 19th century circus elephant, whose size made his name into a popular adjective. “I’m an animal person,” he says. In fact, his first book (after Haley graduated from the University of Texas in Austin) was intended to be a study of buffalo hunting (Buffalo War; published in 1976 by Doubleday; it is currently available from Texas A&M University Press). Unfortunately, Haley discovered that the subject had been well covered by other authors. Fortunately, during his research he discovered the Red River Indian Uprising of 1874, which had NOT been well covered; that situation was soon rectified.
After two years of law school, Haley started on his next book, Apaches: A History and Culture Portrait, published in 1981. Once again, his work was critically acclaimed, but his next effort would become his best seller. In a departure from his previous scholarly treatises, Haley published the oversized and heavily illustrated Texas: An Album of History , which appeared in 1985 to great popularity and a 45-city Texas book tour. St. Martin's Press reprinted the volume in trade paper format, and also commissioned its sequel, Texas: From Spindletop Through World War II, which came out in June, 1993.
During the ‘80s and ‘90s, Haley wrote three novels. The motion picture rights to one, The Lions of Tsavo, were purchased by Walt Disney Pictures’ Touchstone division. In the meantime, he spent fifteen years researching the life and times of Sam Houston – a timespan that nearly bankrupted him, but yielded a wealth of previously undisclosed material on Texas’ greatest hero. The resulting book, Sam Houston, is the largest and most complete biography ever written of the legendary American icon. It was published in March, 2002 by the University of Oklahoma Press and was the subject of a second extensive Texas book tour. Sam Houston has won nine awards, including the Texas State Historical Association's 2003 Coral Horton Tullis Memorial Prize as the best book on Texas of that year, the San Antonio Conservation Society's 2003 Book Citation, the Western Writers of America 2003 Spur Award as best biography of a western subject, the 2003 T. R. Fehrenbach Award of the Texas Historical Commission, and the Texas Historical Foundation's Deolece Parmelee Award for outstanding original research.
Haley’s latest book, "Passionate Nation: The Epic History of Texas," was published in April, 2006, by The Free Press; it has sold out two printings, and is halfway through the third. He has recently collaborated with well-known Texas Ranger Joaquin Jackson on a sequel to Jackson’s One Ranger: a Memoir (One Ranger Returns -- University of Texas Press),
has two more books in the works, and is toying with the idea of a history of German immigrants in the Hill Country.
Haley was one of the honored guests at last fall’s Literary Arts Festival in Burnet; he is a thorough and even-handed historian who manages to make history very readable (although he does throw in a big word here and there; “I’m a demanding writer,” he says. “I want to challenge the reader a little.”) Even if the “German Immigration” book never comes to fruition, we are proud to claim James Haley as a Hill Country Texan.