Jim Cornelius
Born in the suburbs of Los Angeles, Jim Cornelius grew up dreaming of distant frontiers, of mountain men, long hunters, African explorers.
His older brother gave him a tattered copy of Allan W. Eckert’s The Frontiersmen, a biography of Simon Kenton, and the twig was bent.
Graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, Jim received honors in History even though he primarily focused on a self-directed course in woods running.
He now resides on the high desert of Central Oregon, where he makes his living with his pen. A musician and a songwriter, he also remains a woods runner dreaming of distant frontiers.
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow!!
What a great ‘feel and tone’ this site has Jim. Both the visuals and the text are ‘dead on’.
Knowing you and appreciating where you headed leaves me smiling!
All the best,
-john-
All hail….Burnham, Selous, Boone, Kenton, Cunningham, Podock, Clark, Carson…you’re on the trail. All should follow.
My apologies to Roger Pocock for the slip of the keyboard.
Come out east and play in the woods with us. So many reenacting groups to choose from.
Thanks for the invite. I’ve spent a total of 2 weeks east of the Mississippi and I want more. So much history.
Impressive, Jim! I’ll take my time to read it all but it is full of personal heroes & necessary books.
Followed you from comments on the late great George K at Tom’s (have some at my blog too) and will link to you too soon. Keep it up!
Hi Jim,
Thank you so much for the nice article in the Nugget on Halfway To Midnight. I really appreciate it. It’s always special to know someone who loves the West as much as I do.
Your friend,
Larry
Twas a pleasure, Larry. Good luck with the book sales. Still want you to hear “Charlie Russell Sky.”
Hello Jim,
I came across your comment re Tom Mix and Pancho Villa and felt compelled to reply!
Most of my Dad’s (Clifford Irving) books will be on Kindle, we’ve started with 12 and will complete the rest in the next few months. We’re releasing on Nook and others too.
All best,
Josh
That’s good news. Fine storyteller — and Mix & Villa is just a must-read delight. Thanks for dropping a line.
Center Street is thrilled to welcome Charles Martin, the New York Times bestselling author of seven beloved novels, to our list this spring. In a review of Where the River Ends, Booklist praised that Charles’s writing “may well appeal to fans of Nicholas Sparks, Robert James Waller, and Richard Paul Evans,” and Where the Mountain Between Us has been optioned for film. Martin’s latest novel has the storytelling prowess fans have come to expect with a mysterious and endearing Texas Ranger protagonist. THUNDER AND RAIN (Center street, Publication date: April 2012: $21.99) is a love story, a mystery and page-turner about a man torn between his past and his future.
Of the experience of writing THUNDER AND RAIN, Martin says, “It’s a story that’s been bubbling in me a long, long time. Often, readers ask me, ‘What’s your favorite book?’ A tough question. You might as well line up my three boys and ask me who I love the most…That said, finishing Thunder and Rain did something deep in me that no work yet has done. It put words to an emotion, to a place in me that no book of mine has ever reached.”
I think your readers would love to hear about this thrilling novel, and I would love to send you a copy of the book for review. Please let me know if you’re interested and I’ll send you a copy of the book to the address of your choosing.
Thanks,
Jake Arthur
Hi; My ebook novel, Scalp Mountain, is available at Amazon and I’m looking for reviewers. Would you be interested? I am pasting a book description below. Thanks, Julia Robb. p.s., I can’t find your email address on your blog.
It’s 1876 at Scalp Mountain and Colum McNeal is fleeing gunmen sent by his Irish-immigrant father. Colum pioneers a Texas ranch, a home which means everything to him, but struggles to stay there: José Ortero, a Jacarilla Apache, seeks revenge for the son Colum unwittingly killed.
At the same time, an old acquaintance, Mason Lohman, obsessively stalks Colum through the border country, planning to take his life. Colum has inspired the unthinkable in Lohman. In a time and place where a man’s sexuality must stand unchallenged, Colum has ignited Lohman’s desire.
Other characters include Texas Ranger William Henry, who takes Colum’s part against his father while wrestling with his own demons. Henry’s family was murdered by Comanches and he regrets the revenge he took;
and Clementine Weaver, who defies frontier prejudice by adopting an Indian baby, must choose between Colum and her husband.
Scalp Mountain is based on the Southern Plains’ Indian Wars.
Those wars were morally complex, and the novel attempts to reflect those profound, tragic and murderous complications.
Everyone was right, everyone was wrong, everyone got hurt.
For more information, visit my website, at scalp mountain.com and the blog, at http://scalpmountain.blogspot.com/
Hi Julia:
Thanks for stopping by. I’ll check it out.
Jim
WOW! Super site! Glad I followed the trail over from Querencia!(so you have Steve Bodio to blame for that!) That IS Selous in the photo at the top, right? Yeah, just what I need to “waste” more time on the workplace computer!(I don’t have one of these contraptions of my own…). I was born in Southern California too(long, long, long ago…), but my parents translocated me when I was only 2 to rural midstate N. C., so I grew up quite wild, and upon reaching physical maturity, I spent a coupla decades living in the Appalachian Mountains back-and-forth between Tennessee and N. C.–I am now in the Uwharrie “mountains” of N. C.(I miss the Apps with superior anguish, though….)–so if you ever get around to touring more of the East or South–and DARE, drop on by(the Uwharries ARE a neato place–just too small an area for my type of territory ranging, sigh…). I too, read Eckert’s “Frontiersman”(and scads of his other books!) early–and even got to be an “Xtra” in the most recent(1991) “Last Of The Mohicans”!(lotta tales there!), a great fan of Africana exploration/hunting/adventure(plus I got to live a few months in the wilds of Africa years ago), so I, too, have been a woods runner, and jungle lurker since toddlerhood! And rarely ever meet/talk to anyone else who is! And as things get more and more “techno-illogical”, the chances lessen…..So GREAT to find yer blog! An excellent outlet for moi! I will likely plague you henceforth…..
“Plague” away! Great to meet a kindred spirit.
Jim
Jim!
Found my way to your site,from a trail going back to what you wrote about
James Carlos Blake.I´m a swede that´s moved around some , the last 20 years living in Spain.Most all of the things you write about in “Frontier Partisans” I find interesting.
Keep up the good work!
T
Welcome, Tom!
Jim thank you for this site about Al Sieber. I live in Globe Az where Al lived and is buried. I do a lot of historic art work of Al. The picture you have posted is one I have never seen before. Do you know who owns the photo and if permission to use it would be possible?
We have many visitors to our historic museum in Globe who want to see Al’s gravesite. A map is kept on file of how to find it. I would love to have permission to use this photo. In return I would be glad to share photo’s of Al’s 5ft tombstone, and any number of others you might like. Again my thanks
I’ll check into it.
Love your “voice”
Besos