Interview with Kenneth John Atchity
Interview with
Kenneth John Atchity Author of Homer's Iliad: The Shield of Memory - Which was his Ph.D. Dissertation. The work
was awarded Yale Graduate School's Highest Academic Honor - The Porter Prize;
and was later published by Southern Illinois University Press (Edited by John
Gardner). Mentors at Yale Included
Thomas Bergin, Thomas Greene, A. Bartlett Giamatti, Richard Ellinger, Eric
Segal and Lowry Nelson Jr.
His Twenty Books Include:
·
Homer: Critical Essays (G.K.Hall),
·
The Renaissance Reader (HarperCollins),
·
The Classical Greek Reader (Harper-Oxford University
Press),
·
Italian
Literature: Roots & Branches (Yale University Press),
·
A Writer’s Time (W.W. Norton)
·
Seven Ways to Die (with William Diehl) (Story Merchant
Books)
·
And The Classical Roman
Reader (Harper-Oxford)
Kenneth represents writers of both fiction and nonfiction. He
accounts for numerous bestsellers and movies both produced in television and on
the big screen. In 2011 he was nominated for an Emmy Award for Producing “The
Kennedy Detail.”
We are very pleased to introduce our readers to his latest
addition to storytelling which is his first novel called The Messiah Matrix.
Kenneth – thank you so much for giving me this interview.
From the interviews I have done so far over the past year I’m fairly positive
that you must be one of the most aspiring authors I have ever done an interview
on.
Thank
you, Nadine. I’m definitely aspiring!
1.
As a start I always like for authors to tell us a
bit about themselves. Where did your journey start, what made you start
writing?
I’m
sure it was my mother egging me on from the kitchen as I sat at the table
turning an essay into a short story. She came up with some preposterous plots,
but I modified them and made them work. Her mantra was “go for it”!
2.
I have to ask (and I know I have asked some other
authors the same thing), how
do you approach your writing? A lot of writers build their story. They first
develop their characters, then develop their plot and then start writing.
Others just jump into it from the word go.
Every
project is different, but the FIRST THING I always do is to carve out time each
day to work on my current ‘creative project.’ Without time, we have nothing—and
it is time that gets work done.
3.
Another question that I have asked before but
would like your input on is how do you treat sequel writing? As an author
(unpublished but striving) myself, I
had written my 1st novel, whilst I was going / am going through the
editing process I started work on its sequel. I found that as my story progressed there was
some stuff that came up that I wanted to add into the first novel which I
thought would tie them together. Do you experience similar notions? If you did
how do you deal with it?
I don’t have the
‘sequel problem’ you’re experiencing. I focus on the story at hand, which is
challenge enough in itself. I can see how that would get complicated though,
and would have to understand in more detail to comment usefully.
4.
From basic reviews I had obtained on The Messiah
Matrix I concluded that the novel covers a great story that is layered with
romance, believable characters, wonderful settings and an unpredictable ending.
Would you mind elaborating a bit on what readers could expect?
Readers
can expect to be drawn into one of the greatest mysteries of the last two
thousand years—how did the story of Jesus Christ get started? What is its
provable historical roots?
5.
Where can readers follow your novels and latest
updates?
The
Messiah Matrix has its own website, www.messiahmatrix.com.
We’d love nothing more than questions from readers on the blog section of that
website. For my progress in general, check out kenatchity.blogspot.com and
storymerchant.com. Messiah and Seven
Ways to Die also have their own Facebook pages.
6.
The novel has reached number one on kindle. How
do you feel about that?
I
was happily surprised, especially in England where it’s high on many lists and
selling very well despite the fact that we haven’t begun to market it yet.
7.
Some readers claim that this novel was far better
than the Da Vinci Code. This is high praise, what are your views?
Of
course I knew the book would be compared to Dan Brown, whom I admire. My view
is that the issues Messiah Matrix
deals with are much more monumental—the very origins of Christianity—than Da Vinci, but I admire his mastery of
detail, which I couldn’t hope to equal.
8.
Where did the idea come from for the writing of
the Messiah Matrix?
It
came from my Roman Catholic upbringing, and the doubts I began having at the
age of 15 about the “facts” of the life of Jesus, and the “rules” of the
Catholic Church. For example, everyone who ate meat on Fridays went to hell for
all eternity if they didn’t receive confession before they died. THEN the
Church changed the rules and said it’s okay to eat meat on Friday. So what
happened to all those souls in hell for eating meat on Friday? The answer is
that they’re still there because those were the rules when they were alive.
Hmmm, I thought, what kind of God acts like that? Do these rules, in fact, have
anything to do with God at all? Read the novel and find out.
9.
As a Christian, what can readers expect to
discover with regards to the roots of Christianity, anti-Christian perspectives
and general religious views.
The
book is very respectful of Christianity, and its basic peaceful doctrines; it’s
much less tolerant of organized religion, which I personally believe is one of
the greatest causers of violence the world has ever known. If read properly,
the book actually acclaims that Christianity was founded in a magnificent way
that should make everyone even prouder to be a Christian.
10.
You recently did an article on CNN religion’s
site that read “the Jesus debate: man vs. myth. The article covers Timothy
Freke’s discovery of a religious image that some would call obscene. From the
description it was of a drawing from a third-century amulet depicting a naked
man nailed to a cross. The name on the amulet however isn’t that of Jesus of
Nazareth, instead it was a pseudonym for Osiris-Dionysus, a pagan god in
ancient Mediterranean culture. How was this article received within the public?
What’s your personal conclusion?
Why
is a man hanging on a cross obscene if it’s Orpheus (not Osiris) and not
obscene if it’s Jesus? Geez, this kind of stuff makes me nuts. The name on the
amulet is actually Orpheus—Bacchus (another name of Dionysus).
1 1.
As an author, can you give struggling authors any
advice on the way forward?
The
way forward is persistence. Never give up. And, as the late great Ray Bradbury
said, “Start writing more. It’ll get rid of all those moods you’re having!”
1 2.
Final quote/ inspiration note.
“Go for it!” and read The Messiah Matrix, and review it for amazon.
