"The universe is made of stories, not of atoms."
—Muriel Rukeyser
____________________________

Ken Atchity Quote...

“If you have a dream, you have a responsibility to yourself and to us to make it come true. That’s the most important thing in your life. Don’t let anything stand in its way.”

― Kenneth John Atchity, The Messiah Matrix



Read The New Rinaldi In September!

 



Set for release this coming September, "PANIC ATTACK" is the sixth in the award-winning series of mystery thrillers from the mind of Dennis Palumbo.

This time, Pittsburgh psychologist and police consultant Daniel Rinaldi finds himself caught up in the investigation of a series of seemingly random sniper attacks.

The hunt for the Steel City Sniper leads to a heart-stopping conclusion that readers will never forget!

To pre-order "PANIC ATTACK," please click here for Amazon Books. Or order from your favorite local independent bookstore or from the publisher’s website, Poisoned Pen Press.

For those who’ve yet to make the acquaintance of Pittsburgh’s most famous fictional psychologist, check out the previous five books (below) in the Daniel Rinaldi series.

Psychologist Dr. Daniel Rinaldi consults with the Pittsburgh Police. His specialty is treating victims of violent crime--those who’ve survived an armed robbery, kidnapping, or sexual assault, but whose traumatic experience still haunts them. 

“PANIC ATTACK” is the sixth in the Daniel Rinaldi Mysteries series written by Palumbo.



Ken's Weekly Book Recommendation: Stressed in the U.S. by Meg Van Deusen

Dr. Meg Van Deusen has gleaned a wealth of knowledge during her twenty-seven years as a clinical psychologist. She has worked with a multitude of people from varying backgrounds. and is passionate about attachment theory, its relationship to stress, and how we can use it to feel less harried and improve our lives.⁠





Check out her book Stressed in the US: 12 Tools to

Tackle Anxiety, Loneliness, Tech-Addiction, and more

AVAILABLE on AMAZON


HEALTH MEDIA NOW INTERVIEWS DR. MEG VAN DEUSEN-STRESSED IN THE US

 


 

Meg Van Deusen received her BA in English from Santa Clara University in 1985 and her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology in Los Angeles in 1992. She has worked with children, adolescents, and adults both in inpatient and outpatient settings throughout the Los Angeles and Seattle areas. Her knowledge of and passion for attachment theory, mindfulness, interpersonal neurobiology, sleep and dreams informs her belief that meaningful connection with ourselves and others helps us handle stress. In her review of the literature and interviews with researchers, everyday Americans, and clients, she has cultivated a first-hand understanding of how our current American culture is creating barriers to human attachments and, therefore, weakening our ability to handle the stressors we face today.


Check out her book Stressed in the US: 12 Tools to

Tackle Anxiety, Loneliness, Tech-Addiction, and more

AVAILABLE on AMAZON



Voyage LA Interviews Ken Atchity






Meet Ken Atchity


All my life I’ve been focused on stories–writing and editing them,; publishing them; analyzing them as a professor of comparative literature and Fulbright professor at the University of Bologna; reviewing them for The Los Angeles Times Book Review; developing them; representing them; and producing them. 

Long ago an ambassador from a middle eastern country told me: “You’re like your Phoenician ancestors–you’re a story merchant,” and the more I thought about that the more I liked it. Especially because the Phoenicians, the great merchants of antiquity, invented the alphabet to make story exchange–from Indian to Greece, Egypt to Rome, China to Italy–easier. 

I’ve written and published more than 20 books of my own, both fictions, like The Messiah Matrix, and nonfiction, like A Writer’s Time–which the New York Times called “the best book on writing.” 

As a literary manager producer, I’ve made hundreds of deals for my clients for film and television, and produced over 30 films. We were nominated for an Emmy for The Kennedy Detail and saw The Meg, a book/film we developed, sell nearly $600 million in the global market. I’ve always believed that the world we humans inhabit “is made not of atoms but of stories.”

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?

You begin to see it as a smooth road, the longer you endure the journey. What seemed like bumps at the time, looking back are merely the natural patterns, the ups and downs of the most exciting and least secure career in the story marketplace. The struggles were about clarifying and securing rights, dealing with people whose egos have suddenly blossomed, herding cats to get a project into production or a book into press, and, always, finding a way to stay “at the baccarat table” until the payoff comes. But if you have lots of ideas, there’s no downtime that isn’t filled with making them happen one way or the other.

We’d love to hear more about your business.

We set up movies and television series on one coast, books on the other and through our own imprint, but my favorite activity is the one we’re known best at: developing intellectual properties for the widest possible markets. What sets us apart is that we’ve done it all, for over thirty years–we’re even dealing with theater and opera. We specialize in recognizing great stories.

What were you like growing up?

Born in Louisiana Cajun country and growing up in Kansas City, I was a serious student, especially of languages–Latin, Greek, French, Spanish and by the time I got my PhD from Yale Italian, German and recently just published a book on “domestic Japanese.” I love language because they unlock stories, so learned Greek to read Homer, Spanish to read Don Quixote, Italian to read Dante, etc. 

Raised in a family that loved jokes, I soon learned to recognize that jokes, too, were stories and observed who knew how to tell them, who didn’t. I also noticed that EVERYTHING we do seems to be about storytelling, whether it’s serving on a jury and judging which of the opposing attorneys I believe; buying a car from a salesman; listening for a political candidate’s message; or deciding, on a first meeting, whether I “like her story” or not. I was, from early days, intent. One day in graduate school, I was walking across Harvard Square when a woman crossed my path and said, “Smile, sir!”



"I make it a regular practice to reach for my pen & notebook immediately upon waking. The words that spill out establish a bridge between two otherwise disparate states."

 ⁠ ⁠ ~Peter Wortsman⁠ ⁠ 


Via Kenneth Atchity (Dreamworks Magazine)⁠






 

A Haiku Writer’s Time: Learning from Kenneth Atchity by Michael Dylan Welch

"As Kenneth Atchity says in his introduction, “A writer, after all, is only a person who loves writing and believes in it strongly enough to want to do it well” (xiv). Isn’t that what all haiku writers are after, to do it well?"

 

First published in Frogpond 40:1, Winter 2017, pages 77 to 81. Originally written in October and November of 2016, with a few revisions since publication. For this essay, I read the original 1986 edition of the author’s book, but it was expanded in 1995 with an additional chapter and other revisions .

Haiku Writer's Time Lea... 


Available on Amazon


Why The Meg is the most successful China-US co-production ever!

 How giant shark movie he Meg, starring Li Bingbing and Jason Statham, became the highest grossing China-US co-production in history



Since Jaws invented the summer blockbuster in 1975 shark movies have always been popular with the public, so The Meg’s premise was a winner from the beginning.

Lead actors Jason Statham and Li Bingbing may lack chemistry, but it succeeds by treating the Chinese characters with as much dignity as the American ones.


Li Bingbing (third, left) and Jason Statham (centre) lead an international cast in The Meg (2018). The film made US$530 million worldwide to be the highest-grossing Chinese-American co-production of all time.

In 2018 The Meg caught Hollywood commentators completely off guard. Jon Turteltaub’s giant shark movie became the highest-grossing Chinese-American co-production of all time, making US$530 million worldwide and beating the previous record holder, Kung Fu Panda 3 .

So how did a movie dubbed “the thinking fan’s Sharknado” triumph against the odds?

Based on a 1997 book by Steve Alten, and starring Jason Statham and Li Bingbing, The Meg pits the crew of an underwater research facility against a 23-metre megalodon, a creature previously thought to be extinct.

Shades of Love Trailers - Lilac Dream, The Rose Café, Champagne For Two

 

"Shades of Love" (1987) Romance Series Created and Produced by Kenneth Atchity





LILAC DREAM (Dack Rambo, Susan Almgren) - A woman nurses a man back to health after finding him washed ashore on an island retreat. Even though she realizes he has amnesia, they fall in love and lead a blissful existence until his wife comes to claim him.

THE ROSE CAFE (Parker Stevenson, Linda Smith) - Courtney and her stifling fiancé open a restaurant called the Rose Café. When she becomes reacquainted with an old school chum named Josh, her fiancé dissolves the partnership in an act of jealousy and Courtney is left stranded until Josh comes to the rescue.

CHAMPAGNE FOR TWO (Nicholas Campbell, Kirsten Bishop) - Conflict between career and love is portrayed in this eighties film of self-absorption.


Shades of Love is a collection of romantic and dramatic made-for-television and direct-to-video films. The films paired well-known leading men with lesser known Canadian actresses. Aired in Canada and sold individually on VHS in North America, the Shades of Love film series was geared towards females who bought romance novels.


Michael Simpson Launches Ravenstone's Dirty, Dusty and Divine

Congratulations Michael A Simpson on the release of Ravenstone's Dirty Dusty and Divine launching today on more than 100 streaming and download sites, including Spotify, Amazon, iTunes, Pandora, Apple Music and Deezer.



Ravenstone was "the first major band" of the Athens music scene. "Before Widespread Panic, before the B-52s, before R.E.M. – there was Ravenstone, often called 'one of the godfathers of the Athens music scene.'" 
~ The Red & Black newspaper (01/29/2009)

The album, featuring Darryl Rhoades (drums), Jonny Hibbert (sax), Colin Agnew (percussion) and vocalist Alfreda Gerald, showcases the band’s eclectic influences with remixes of its songs dating to the early ’70s and new material that expands its rock roots.