"flying islands of the night" is the only play riley wrote and published. written while he was traveling with the adelphians but never performed, the play has similarities to "a midsummer night's dream", which riley may have used as a model. it concerns a kingdom besieged by evil forces of a sinister queen who is defeated eventually by an angel-like heroine. most reviews were positive. riley published the play, and it became popular in the central indiana area during late 1878, helping him to convince newspapers to accept his poetry again. in november 1879, he was offered a position as a columnist at the "indianapolis journal" and accepted after being encouraged by e.b. matindale, the paper's chief editor.