Jonathan Odell was born and raised in Mississippi, growing up in the institutional segregation of a small town. In college he became and activist and sold The Ebony Pictorial History of Black America door to door in black neighborhoods across the South while the Klan tried to discourage him.

He spent his business career as a leadership coach to Fortune 500 companies.

He now resides in Minnesota. The View from Delphi is his first novel.