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| KEN ATCHITY
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| Chief
Operating Officer and Chairman |
With more than forty years experience in the publishing world,
and over fifteen years in entertainment, Dr. Ken Atchity is
a self-defined "story merchant" - writer, producer, teacher,
and literary manager, responsible for launching dozens of
books and films. His life's passion is finding great storytellers
and turning them into bestselling authors and screenwriters.
Ken has produced 28 films, including "Joe Somebody" (Tim Allen;
Fox), "Life or Something Like It" (Angelina Jolie; Fox), "The
Amityville Horror" (NBC), "Shadow of Obsession" (NBC), "The
Madam's Family" (CBS), "Gospel Hill" (Fox), and "Hitting
the Bricks." Films in development include "Meg," "3 Men Seeking
Monsters" (Universal), "Demonkeeper" (Fox), "The Last Valentine"
(Hallmark Hall of Fame), "Sex in the South" (Lifetime), and
Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not (starring Jim Carrey; Paramount).
Full film bio at
www.imdb.com.
His 14 books include books for writers at every stage of their
careers.
Based on his own teaching and writing experience, Ken has
successfully built bestselling careers for novelists, nonfiction
writers, and screenwriters from the ground up. Clients include
bestsellers Jamise Dames, Noire, Shirley Palmer, Tracy Price-Thompson,
Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not!, Cheryl Saban, and Governor Jesse
Ventura. Now, as chairman and CEO of Atchity Entertainment
International, Inc., Ken's Story Merchant companies, www.aeionline.com
and www.thewriterslifeline.com,
provide a one-stop full-service development and management
machine for commercial and literary writers who wish to launch
their storytelling in all media - from publishing and film
and television production, to Web presence and merchandising
& licensing.
Ken was born in Eunice, Louisiana; and grew up between Louisiana
and Kansas City, Missouri, where he attended Rockhurst High
School (he was editor in chief of The Prep News), and was
founder and editor of the St. Elizabeth young teen newspaper
The Rumble. After receiving K.C.'s Mnookin-Brown American
Legion writing fellowship, Ken won an Ignatian Scholarship
to Georgetown University.
After undergraduate work at Georgetown (A.B., English/Classics,
winner Virgilian Medal), and graduate work at Yale (M.Phil.
Theater History, Ph.D. Comparative Literature):
- He served as professor and chairman of comparative literature
and creative writing at Occidental College (Faculty Achievement
Award; published articles, reviews, short stories, and
poems in major journals and magazines throughout the world).
- Received awards and grants from the American Council
of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities,
the Mellon Foundation
- Editor of CQ: Contemporary Quarterly: Poetry and
Art
- Co-founder and -editor (with Marsha Kinder of Dreamworks:
An Interdisciplinary Journal Devoted to the Relationship
between Dreams and the Arts (authors published and/or
advisory board included Joyce Carol Oates, Ursula Leguin,
Ernest Cardenal, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Paul
Bowles, John Fowles, Hubert Selby, John Rechy, Stephen
King, Georges Simenon, Carlos Fuentes, Eugene Ionesco).
- Served as Fulbright Professor of American Studies at
the University of Bologna
- Distinguished Instructor, UCLA Writers Program
- Regular columnist-reviewer for The Los Angeles Times
Book Review (involved in establishing the Los Angeles
Times Book Awards)
- Vice-president of P.E.N. Los Angeles
- Ken has made numerous radio and television appearances,
speaking on creativity, dreams, and various academic and
entertainment and publishing related subjects.
- He’s a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
- He wrote and served as on-camera talent for Synapse
Technology's "Columbus : The Voyage of Discovery," and
consulted for the Discovery Channel's series, "The Power
of Dreams."
Several of Ken's screenplays are currently under option. One
of Ken's favorite activities is reaching out to writers as
keynote speaker at conferences. Conferences he's appeared
at include:
- Pacific Northwest Writers Conference (Seattle)
- CASE Institute ( San Diego )
- Romantic Times Convention ( New York City )
- Deep South Writers Conference ( Lafayette , Louisiana
)
- Southwest Writers Conference ( Albuquerque )
- Austin Writers League Conference
- Florida Bar Association ( Miami )
- The Learning Annex ( Los Angeles , New York , San Diego
, San Francisco , Toronto )
- Honolulu Writers Conference
- American Writers Conference (Kansas City)
- Southwest Writers Conference ( Houston )
- Dallas Writers Conference
- Loyola Writers Conference ( Los Angeles )
- Open University ( Minneapolis )
- University of California (Davis, Irvine , Los Angeles
, Riverside , Santa Barbara , San Diego )
- California State University ( Bakersfield , Los Angeles
, Dominguez Hills)
- Georgetown University (Washington, D.C.)
- University of Houston
- University of Texas (Dallas)
- Rice University
- Villanova (Villanova, PA)
- Swarthmore (Swarthmore, PA)
- Avila Writers Conference ( Kansas City )
- Mega Book Marketing University ( Los Angeles )
- University of Missouri ( Kansas City )
- Willamette Valley Writers Conference (Portland)
- Women in Film ( Hollywood )
- Women's National Book Association ( New York )
- WOW ( Baltimore )
Ken's biography is listed in:
- Who's Who in America
- Contemporary Authors
- Directory of American Scholars
- Who's Who in California
- Who's Who in the West
- International Who's Who in Poetry
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