Jonathan Odell

Background

Jonathan Odell was born as Johnny Johnson in 1951 in Laurel, Mississippi, United States and grew up in the Jim Crow S.

Education

Jonathan Odell graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Counseling Psychology in 1975. While a student, he became involved in the civil rights movement.

Career

Jonathan Odell began his career in consulting for the Conklin Company, which sold oil and lubricants as a sales trainer, became its corporate vice president of human resources in 1981 and in 1986, he formed his own training and development company called Jonathan Consulting Group. Jonathan also built a successful practice as a Leadership Coach to executives in Fortune 500 companies.

In 1997, Jonathan Odell decided to sell his company and try his hand at writing fiction. In his debut novel “The View from Delphi” that was published in 2004, Odell evokes that world and its rigid social code of race and class distinctions. He also wrote “The Healing” in 2012 and “Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League” in 2015.

Presently, Jonathan lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States and often collaborates on creative projects with his husband Jim Kuether.

Achievements

• Jonathan Odell’s short stories and essays have appeared in Stories from the Blue Moon Café, Men Like That, Letters of the Twentieth Century, Breaking Silence, Speakeasy Literary Magazine, Savannah Literary Journal, Commonweal Magazine, and Utne Reader. The View from Delphi was the Spring selection for “Talking Volumes,” the joint book club of Minnesota Public Radio, the Star Tribune and the Loft Literary Center.
  
  In 2003, with Minneapolis civil rights leader and city councilperson Don Samuels, Odell founded the Institute for Authentic Dialogue to spark conversations across race.
  
  Jonathan has appeared on radio and TV across the country and has been a regular commentator for Minnesota Public Radio.
  
  

Works

More photos

• book

  • Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League

    (Set in pre-Civil Rights Mississippi, and inspired by his ...)

    2015
  • The View from Delphi

    (Two young mothers have each lost a child, but they overco...)

• booki

  • The Healing

    (Rich in mood and atmosphere, The Healing is a warmhearted...)

    2012

Connections

Jonathan Odell is married to Jim Kuether.

husband:

Jim Kuether

James Kuether is an award-winning artist whose paintings and photographs hang in galleries and private collections around the globe. He is an amateur fossil hunter and a life-long dinosaur enthusiast. His natural history art has appeared in numerous publications and enhances natural history museum displays in the United States and Europe. His book, "The Amazing World of Dinosaurs" features a collection of more than 160 original illustrations and was published by Adventure/Keen in October 2016.