With more than forty years experience in the publishing world, and twenty years in entertainment, Dr. Ken Atchity is a self-defined "story merchant" - writer, producer, career coach, 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 30 films, including "Hysteria" (Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, Informant Media), "Expatriate" (Aaron Eckhart, Informant), the Emmy-nominated "The Kennedy Detail" (Discovery), "The Lost Valentine" (Betty White; Hallmark Hall of Fame), "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" (Ellen Burstyn; CBS), "Gospel Hill" (Danny Glover; Fox), and "14 Days with Alzheimer's" (with Story Merchant client Lisa Cerasoli).
Films in development include "Memories of 100," "Meg," "Boobytrap," "Demonkeeper," "Dr. Fuddle and the Golden Baton," and "Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not!" (starring Jim Carrey; Paramount). Full film bio at imdb
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 Steve Alten, Jerry Blaine and Lisa McCubbin, Royce Buckingham, Alaya Johnson, Clint Hill, John Scott Shepherd, Noire, Shirley Palmer, Dennis Palumbo, James Michael Pratt, Larry Thompson, Tracy Price-Thompson, Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not!, Cheryl Saban, and Governor Jesse Ventura.
Ken's Story Merchant companies, AEI, and The Writer's Lifeline have provided 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). Ken won an Ignatian Scholarship to Georgetown University.
Following undergraduate work at Georgetown (A.B., English/Classics, winner Virgilian Medal), and graduate work at Yale (M.Phil. Theater History, Ph.D. Comparative Literature), Ken has served as:
- Professor and chairman of comparative literature and creative writing at Occidental College (Faculty Achievement Award; published hundreds of articles, reviews, short stories, and poems in major journals and magazines throughout the world). Ken 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 and 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).
- Fulbright Professor of American Studies at the University of Bologna
- Distinguished Instructor, UCLA Writers Program, he was also a regular columnist-reviewer for The Los Angeles Times Book Review (involved in establishing the Los Angeles Times Book Awards) as well as 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, and given keynote speeches at conferences throughout the world. He's a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. (See Wikipedia). Ken's full biography is also 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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