Kenneth Atchity Papers

Kenneth John Atchity was born on January 16, 1944 in Eunice, Louisiana, the son of Fred J. and Myrza (nee Aguillard) Atchity. In 1965 Kenneth Atchity received an A.B. from Georgetown College, where he was editor-in-chief of The Hoya and a newscaster on WGTB-FM Radio from 1962 to 1965. Kenneth Atchity later attended Yale University and received an M.Phil. (1969) and a Ph.D. (1970) in Comparative Literature with emphases on Classical and Italian literatures. His son, Vincent, graduated from Georgetown College in 1986 and his daughter, Rosemary, from Columbia University in 1990.

Kenneth Atchity began a teaching career in Comparative Literature and Creative Writing at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California in 1970. He attained the rank of professor and taught regularly until 1985. During this period Atchity was deeply involved in the creative process of a number of projects. He was author of two books, Sleeping with an Elephant: Selected Poems, 1965 - 1976 (1978) and Homer's 'Iliad': The Shield of Memory (1978). He edited Eterne in Mutabilitie: The Unity of 'The Faerie Queene' (1972), co-edited and contributed to Italian Literature: Roots and Branches (1976) and Critical Essays on Homer (1987), and authored numerous introductions and articles for scholarly publications. Atchity was also the features editor of Moneysworth (1971); contributing editor of California State Poetry Quarterly (1972-75), San Francisco Review of Books (1977- ), Italia America (1977-79), and Literary Review (Edinburgh, Scotland, 1980-81); editor of Contemporary Quarterly (1976-79) and Follies (1978-79); and co-founder and editor of Dreamworks (1980). He was the author of the libretto for In Praise of Love which was performed by members of the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center in 1974 (published by Erik K. Marcus) and of Homer, a three-part television program for KNXT-TV in 1976.

During these years, Kenneth Atchity also received many honors, including a Fulbright Professorship at University of Bologna (1974-75) and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1972), American Council of Learned Societies (1973, 1979), and the Mellon Foundation (1978); for his poetry he received the Readers' Choice Award (1970), the National Federation of State Poetry Societies Lubbe Award (1971), and the Modern Award (1971). In 1976, Kenneth Atchity became founder and president of L/A House, Inc., a book, television, and film development and production company. L/A House began by doing manuscript consultation and soon moved on to publishing with the production of Follies, a creative writing magazine of which Atchity was the editor. In the 1980's the company moved into television production, with a syndicated television pilot of BreakThrough!, of which Atchity was executive producer and a co-author. As time went by, Atchity gave increasing attention to L/A House and phased out his teaching involvement at Occidental College, resigning from the faculty in 1987. In 1985 L/A House began development of a set of video romance novels entitled Shades of Love, and in 1986 Kenneth Atchity published A Writer's Time, a guide to creative writing. The 16 Shades of Love films, for which he was executive producer, were produced in 1986 and 1987 and distributed throughout the world by Lorimar, Astral-Bellevue-Pathe, and Warner Brothers. He sold L/A House in 1989 and founded AEI (Atchity Entertainment- Education-Editorial International). In 1989 he was associate producer of the NBC Movie-of-the-Week The Amityville Horror, and served as executive producer of Falling Over Backwards in 1990-91.

Kenneth J. Atchity lives in Los Angeles, California and continues his work as a writer, producer, consultant and executive at AEI. Further biographical information on Kenneth Atchity can be found in Contemporary Authors (NR-16).