Welcome!
This section of the website is for readers who are curious about my life. The images on this page are a visual memoir. You can find out more about me and read free essays before I publish them by signing up for my Substack.
A few basic facts…
I’m single and have two children. I was born in the United States, but I’m not a Native American. I’ve meditated for most of my life and studied the Dharma in Nepal and Tibet.
I once worked as a foreign correspondent and worked in a country suffering from a genocidal civil war. As the situation deteriorated, I was threatened with execution and had daily encounters with death. I survived, but the experience transformed me. Even now, when I visit a restaurant, I’m more relaxed when I’m sitting with my back to the wall.
I wrote The Traveler when I was going through a profound crisis in my life. My decision to create a “deliberately anonymous” life is described in my non-fiction book, Against Authority:
“Gradually, I realized that the surveillance cameras plus the email and cell phone monitoring was creating a Virtual Panopticon—a digital prison created and maintained by computer networks that enclosed all of us within its invisible walls. The Virtual Panopticon seemed so powerful and pervasive that I tried to escape it within the novel by creating six parallel worlds based on the Buddhist realms.
For the first drafts of the book, I kept my birth name off the title page. The old me wasn’t writing this book. Something was different. Something had changed. I had always admired George Orwell and had read his collected essays and letters countless times. When Eric Blair became Orwell, he was set free, liberated from his Eton education and colonial policeman past. And there was another factor about the title page that troubled me. I was telling my readers that this new system of information technology was going to destroy our privacy, and that they should resist this change. It seemed hypocritical to go on a book tour or appear on a talk show blabbing about my life when our private lives were under attack.
Years earlier, I had wandered through a forest at dawn and had stumbled on the nesting place of some red-tailed hawks. A dozen hawks rose into the air and circled me—one coming so close that the tip of its wing brushed against the side of my head. That was a profound incident for me—a totemic moment—so I decided to call myself John Twelve Hawks (John was the name of a relative). I scrawled that name on a title page and smiled for the first time in months.”
I have remained in the shadows for more than twenty years and, gradually, my readers have accepted my decision. When The Golden City was published, I encouraged readers to be me for an evening and sign books with my name. People all over the world organized “I am John Twelve Hawks” events and many of the videos are still up on YouTube.
I spend time in Los Angeles, New York City, Paris and rural Ireland. Ten years ago, I almost died of sepsis. I wake up every morning feeling grateful for my life.
Thank you for reading my books! I hope you enjoy CERTAINTY.
—John Twelve Hawks
- My free e-books can be found at john12hawks.com.
- I have a Facebook profile which shows photos of my current location.
- I express my opinions at my Substack.