Olney John Hawkins (born in Hamilton, Montana, on October 1,1910) and his brother Ward Chambers Hawkins (born in Vancouver, Canada, on December 29, 1912) started their writing careers contributing to the pulps, then joined up to write for the slicks in the 1940s. They wrote thrillers for the Saturday Evening Post and Collier's as well as crime stories for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and The Saint. After a move to Los Angeles, they begin writing film and TV scripts, creating the show Shannon, writing and producing for Little House on the Prairie and Bonanza, and turning out episodes for such series as Burke‐s Law, The Fugitive and Cannon. Ward went on to write a science fiction series for Del Rey Books in the 1980s. After a long illness, John Hawkins died in Los Angles on August 27, 1978, and Ward Hawkins passed away a few years later on December 22, 1990, also in Los Angles.