Background
Oskison was born the son of John (English) and Rachel Crittendon (part-Cherokee) Oskison in Cherokee Nation.
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Oskison was born the son of John (English) and Rachel Crittendon (part-Cherokee) Oskison in Cherokee Nation.
He attended Willie Halsell College in Vinita, where he met and befriended Will Rogers. He graduated in 1898, and was Stanford"s first Native American graduate. He attended Harvard for graduate school.
His fiction focused on the culture clash that mixed-bloods like himself faced. Oskison was an undergraduate at Stanford, where he was president of the Stanford Literary Society. He became an editorial writer for the New York Evening Post.
Oskison switched to Collier"s Weekly in 1907, and became their financial editor in 1910.
On his return to the United States, Oskison married Hildegarde Hawthorne, a novelist. He did not resume his position with Collier"s, but instead became an independent writer
Oskison wrote four novels, one novelized biography (of Sam Houston), one history with commentary (on Tecumseh), and part of an autobiography. During the Depression, he edited a World Pet Association project on Oklahoma.
At the time of his death, his fourth novel and his partial autobiography were in manuscript form only.
His papers were rediscovered in 2007, and were subsequently published. In 1995, Stanford established the John Milton Oskison Writing Competition, held annually. In 2008, a crater on Mercury was named after him.
