Biography

Jonathan Odell is the author of the acclaimed novel The View from Delphi, which deals with the struggle for equality in pre-civil rights Mississippi, his home state. His short stories and essays have appeared in Stories from the Blue Moon Café (Macadam/Cage 2004), Men Like That (University of Chicago Press, 2001), Letters of the Twentieth Century (Dial Press, 1999), Breaking Silence (Xanthus Press, 1996), Speakeasy Literary Magazine, and the Savannah Literary Journal. The View from Delphi was the 2005 spring section for “Talking Volumes,” the joint book club for Minnesota Public Radio, the Star Tribune and the Loft Literary Center.

Odell was born in Mississippi in 1951, grew up in the Jim Crow South and became involved in the civil rights movement in college. He holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology and has been active in human resource development for over 30 years, including holding the position of Vice President of Human Resources for a Minneapolis based corporation and later founding his own consulting companies. In that field he published Work Skills for Teams and Courageous Conversations, a revolutionary approach to diversity training. These programs have grossed over a million dollars in sales to organizations such as General Mills, Prudential Insurance Company, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Hewlett-Packard, and Avon. Odell also built a successful practice as a Leadership Coach to executives in Fortune 500 companies.

In 2003, along with Minneapolis civil rights leader and city councilperson Don Samuels, Odell co-founded the Institute for Authentic Dialogue to spark conversations across race. He has appeared before thousands of business executives, clergy, community and government leaders, and educators, teaching the skills for authentic dialogue through sharing his own race story.

Minneapolis Star Tribune, St. Paul Pioneer Press, and Minnesota Public Radio have all done feature stories on the work Odell is doing in race relations. He has appeared on radio and T.V. across the country and is a regular commentator for Minnesota Public Radio.