Willard E. Hawkins (1887-1970) was a Pulp writer, an editor and newspaperman from Colorado. He didn’t write exclusively for the fantastic Pulps, selling Westerns and adventure stories to Blue Book, Western Rangers, Western Trails, The Green Book and others. 
In fact, Willard took a while to get around to SF. His first sale was “The Human Factor” for Blue Book, September 1912. His first imaginative piece was “The Dead Man’s Tale” for the very first issue of Weird Tales, March 1923. He didn’t write another until 1940, when he sold “The Dwindling Sphere” to John W. Campbell at Astounding Science-Fiction. This was quite an accomplishment that Hawkins never replicated. Campbell was the best paying but also the hardest to sell to.
What followed was an assortment of publications irregularly placed as he worked in other areas, including publishing with his own World Press Inc. One of his publications was his own SF novel Castaways of Plenty: A Parable of Our Times (1935).
“The Dead Man’s Tale” (Weird Tales, March 1923) is reportedly a piece of automatic writing received through a medium. It tells the story of Richard Devaney, a dead man. Vengeance from beyond the grave. The influence of H. G. Wells, who wrote several tales about spirits becoming separated from bodies, can be see here as with later stories.
Seventeen years go by without another SF tale, then Campbell…
“The Dwindling Sphere” (Astounding Science-Fiction, March 1940) has the Earth disappearing as machines convert its matter into energy.
Hawkins sells to the lesser magazines, perhaps selling them Campbell rejects?
“Romance Across the Ages” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, July 1940) has futureman Quintas 76-962-43 fall for Estella the Ommph Girl, a dancer in our time. Johnny’s ventriloquism act may prove useful….
“The Story Behind the Story” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, July 1940) has Hawkins explain first where he got the idea for “The Dwindling Sphere”. The barber’s chair. He imagined the clippers cutting and cutting away at his skull. Later he explains that the idea for “Romance Across the Ages” when he thought of a man in the future writing a love letter to someone in the past. More interesting, is that Quintas was supposed to get the girl. As Hawkins wrote the story, Johnny made sure that wouldn’t happen.
“The Rannie (Super Science Novels, May 1941) has the hunters become the hunted. Imagine hunting using “copters”! For more on SF hunting stories, go here.
“Power For Zenobia” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1941) has a scientist working on animal intelligence prove useful when invaders come to Earth and see the humans as lower beasts.
“The Story Behind the Story” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1941) is mostly a boring diagram but Hawkins does say that he came across the psychological material through his day job at World Press Inc. I thought he might mention H. G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau but nope.
“The Man Who Was Millions” (Science Fiction, June 1941) has Yogarth, a Hindi spirit that wants to claim all of humanity. It is up to his two companions, Sim and Tawanda, to stop him from possessing the human race.
“Master of Emotion” (Science Fiction, September 1941) is like many Pulp stories. It begins with a desperate man taking a job he shouldn’t have. Griff and Lucille must battle the evil Bendizon with his amazing mental powers.
Another long gap of nine years but when he returns he does with longer stories.
“The Chalice of Circe” (Fantastic Adventures, April 1950) sounds like a Weird Tales story of a haunted chalice but that’s ignoring the fact hat the Callistans are involved. And a beauty contest. A real Miss Universe.
“Look to the Stars” (Imagination, October 1950) provides a new mythology for the creation of “N’Urth”. Dave and Sally have to deal with it in our time.
“The Green Blood of Treachery” (Amazing Stories, September 1951) a Venusian invasion countered with mashed potatoes.
“Scratch One Asteroid” (Amazing Stories, November 1952) is about penal ship, Verulin, headed for the prisons of Ceres. Brent escapes thanks to a book from the ship’s library. For more on penal colonies in space. go here.
Conclusion
Hawkins’ fiction is a mix of SF and supernatural ideas at times though he always sides on the Science Fiction side. He doesn’t create any new ideas but plies his trade with alien invasions, space opera and puzzle stories. As a writer of all kinds of Pulp, this would have been standard writing procedure. If an idea worked better in a Western, then it became a tale of Dodge City. If it was more out there, it became a space opera.
After 1952, Willard E. Hawkins does not write any more Science Fiction. Whether this was because he lost interest or because his work was hard to place is unknown. The Pulps would only last a few more years in any event. Despite publishing his own novel, no paperbacks or hard covers followed his Pulp career. He lived until 1970 in Colorado, largely forgotten by fandom.
