“The universe is made of stories, not atoms.”
—Muriel Rukeyser

What’s Our Story?

The Story Merchant Companies were formed over the last thirty years to serve the needs of storytellers, each company serving a different need.

• Story Merchant – representing stories to traditional publishing as well as Hollywood (film and television), as well as career coaching.

• Story Merchant Books – direct-publishing new voices with insufficient platform for traditional corporate publishers.

• Atchity Productions – film and television production and co-production.

• The Writer’s Lifeline – editing writers to bring their skill and craft to the level of their ambition and vision; and ghostwriting authors who need a story told.

Who is the “Story Merchant”?

With nearly fifty years’ experience in the publishing and world and thirty years in entertainment, Dr. Ken Atchity (AB Georgetown/PhD Yale) was dubbed a “Story Merchant” by a visiting ambassador who’d studied Ken’s business and professional profile on the Internet and told Ken he was following in the wake of his Phoenician ancestors.

The Phoenicians were legendary merchants, trading freely from the Middle East to the Indus and as far south as Egypt and the coast of Africa. On their iconic ships, they not only delivered food and goods to far-flung metropolises. They also transmitted stories and culture to and from every port they visited, facilitated by their invention of the alphabet.

Like them, Ken believes in the power of stories to change the world, to make a difference in the lives of others whether through entertainment or instruction.

As a:

• WRITER (novels, screenplays, nonfiction)
• PROFESSOR (of comparative literature and creative writing)
• EDITOR (of books, newspapers, and magazines)
• LITERARY MANAGER, with hundreds of publishing and Hollywood deals for his clients
• Sought after CAREER COACH
  
• PRODUCER (of more than 30 stories for television and film)

Ken’s lifelong mission has been assisting storytellers find their widest audiences.