Odie Hawkins

"The Story Teller's Story" details 75 years of an African-American's jammed up life. Hawkins offers us the insights and perspectives of a very observant African-American writer, who uses his experiences as a way to reaffirm the values, the fact that all human beings are brothers and sisters. "The Story Teller's Story" makes that premise a truth.

Odie Hawkins created the Pan-African Occult genre and "The Snake 20/20" is one of his finest examples of that genre. Hawkins seduces us from the Frankensteins, Werewolves and Vampires of Europe, to take a more profound look at the mythical-spiritual life of Ghana, West Africa. JuJu is an entrenched part of that experience. What is JuJu? Read "The Snake 20/20" for more information. If you doubt the validity of the story, Google "JuJu, Snake, Ghana".

"Urban Nomads and Other Stories" offers the reader the possibility of being able to experience lifestyles, different people, circumstances that he/she might not ever experience during the normal course of their daily lives. In the era of "Fake News" and attacks on journalists, you read about two journalists who immerse themselves with urban nomads to get the story their editors' want for City Beat Magazine. Those familiar with barbershops know that there is a different vibe culturally in a shop that is in one area of town versus another area. This book gives you a chance to visit a barbershop in Compton, California where elders still get respect. Times of racial tension are not much different than they were years ago. 1960's period piece of "Racial Stuff", provides insights on what a Northern Black man experienced in the Deep South. Unique experiences of a Black boy's with "Five Uncles and a Daddy". All families, especially Black families are not the same. All poor families are not the same as all "po" families. There's a "Honeymoon Tent" on St. Julien Street, which shows some people don't surrender to their circumstances. Finally, there are photos that take you onto the streets, moments in time in "Urban Nomads". There is a strong possibility that a close reading of this book will change their lives positively, forever.

Midnight offers us a sensitive view inside the soul of a young African American gangster who is influenced by an older man, a convict, to look into his African side. “You may not be what they’ve told you that you are, over here. When you check out where we came from.”

Let Chester take you on a journey through Spain in his search to find himself—and write about it. He hooks up with “El Encanto”, a star-crossed matador. Then back to the States, where he meets and marries the love of his life. A honeymoon in West Africa leaves them yearning for a place they’ve never known, but feel is their home . . .

Chester L. Simmons, nicknamed “The Great Lawd Buddha” by his hip constituents because of his almond shaped eyes and his generous tummy, is one of those delightfully free spirits that life gives the world now and then. With his storytelling he sometimes fuses reality and creativity into a seamless possibility; or seamless possibilities. He has been known to bend the truth, if the truth was not creating the right kind of life-vibe for him.

There was no sharper con man on the streets of Chicago than Elijah Brookes. Women were his preferred prey—but no mark and no bankroll was safe when Elijah was on the prowl. Cool, beautiful Toni warned him, “Elijah, brothers be playin’ games so hard sometimes they don’t know when to stop. You know what I’m sayin’?” Elijah Brookes had to learn the ultimate lesson the hard way. So many games to be played, so little time.

Odie Hawkins utilizes the same thrust, power, and creativity that made Ghetto Sketches his first bestseller. He has moved the focus from Chicago to Los Angeles; and once again, he has populated his stories with unforgettable characters—the telephone freak, the tenants of Mrs. Solomon’s apartment building, and a few surrealistic types. The Secret Music we all hear is echoed within these stories . . .

An enchanting intro to a collection of unforgettable characters. Bobo, Burks, Leo (sometimes, when into imaginative self-hatred, alias Tony De Medrow), Billy Woods, Herb Cross, Bruce, Mooney, Johnny Fox, Bernard Kelly, and a few others who lived in the same neighborhood and hung out on the same corners. Some of the less informed thought we were a “gang” because we spent a lot of time together, but that was the result of them being unable to penetrate the esoteric haze surrounding our relationships. There were times, to be honest, when we didn’t know what was happening either.

Portrait of Simone is the poignant story of a young soldier stationed in the Deep South, in the recent past, and his romance with a woman nearly twice his age. Simone is mysterious, alluring, charming, complex. The author brings us the story of true love, love that grows deeper with the passage of time, and pays tribute to the woman known as Simone.

In the post–Watts Rebellion 1970s, Chester L. Simmons takes up the study of martial arts—Hapkido and Tae Kwon Do. Author Odie Hawkins, using his special blend of wry humor, incisiveness, and sensitivity, takes alter ego Simmons through that experience, as well as a series of misadventures writing movie and television scripts for Hollyweird studios.

Valonga Price takes a three-year sabbatical from the grime of owning her own company to try to discover her true self. Armed with questions that have been whirling around in her head, she travels to places like Brazil, San Salvador, Bahia, Nigeria, Cuba, and Japan.

An enchanting intro to a collection of unforgettable characters—Elizabeth, “Queen of the Projects”; the girl “Billie” who sings like Lady Day; young Randolph who, to his family’s embarrassment, grows a second head for a while; Dean Dale Jackson, talented writer, sculptor, auto mechanic, and dedicated to the underbelly of a bottle; the Vernon family upwardly mobile but required by a will to grow cotton in their suburban backyard; and Marlene and James, who find happiness in an unexpected way, in marriage.

Chicago, the center of America’s heartland, from its founding in the late 1700s by Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a French-educated black man, to the modern day Gypsies who live on Maxwell Street. It’s a city steeped in Black History. This is the story of a city where a unique African American history has grown, a center for the emergence of jazz, blues, dance, art, and the DuSable Museum of African American History.

The deeply personal story of Odie Hawkins’s journey, from “the poorest of the poor” childhood in Chicago to Hollywood screenwriter—and the people who deeply mattered. A tough, touching autobiography.

Monday evening comn’ down—the dreariest day of the week anywhere, but especially in the ghettos (yea, y’all, they still there) where people have taken their hangovers and other symptoms of a fast weekend to their individual plantations around town (if they’re lucky enough to have one) return to their shacks for four/five more days of clock punching and locksteppin’ before the Eagle flies. Then was then and now is now. What’s the difference?

Henrik Malan was the South African secret agent who devised the plan to have the Black American ghettos destroy themselves by supplying them with a cheap but highly addictive drug known on the streets as “Ghetto Blaster.”