"The universe is made of stories, not of atoms."
—Muriel Rukeyser
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Listen to Keeping Your Spirits up During COVID-19 Webinar with Kenneth Atchity and Alinka Rutkowska

Hollywood Producer Kenneth Atchity and USA Today best-selling author Alinka Rutkowska show you how to make the most of the lockdown.


As many of us move into month two of lockdown with no set "re-opening" date on the horizon, it's only natural that we feel overwhelmed.

After all, this is a big change from what we're used to and probably the biggest such change in our lifetime that we have little control over.

But there's something we can control...

...and that's our mood...

...and our response to what's going on.


Ken taught at UCLA and the NYC Yale Club classes such as as:

Keeping Your Spirits Up;
Dealing with Rejection;
How to Deal with the Waiting;

These classes have never been more timely, which is why we're bringing you the best of the three above to our online masterclass.

LISTEN HERE

Here's what they shared:


• How to deal with anxiety and use it get your creative juices flowing; • How to deal with procrastination and rejection; • The secret to happiness as a writer when nothing is certain; • Identifying the C-Type personality; • Calculating the odds of success in turbulent times; • Managing your attention span; • And much more!


Story Merchant Film Closet: Classic Fantasy Films







‘You Never Had it – An Evening With Charles Bukowski’: New Trailer & Locations For Kino Lorber & Slamdance Documentary

New trailer for documentary You Never Had It – An Evening With Charles Bukowski, which will be released in North America on Kino Lorber’s Kino Marquee revenue share platform on August 7 to mark the centennial of Bukowski’s birth.

Kenneth Atchity with Charles Bukowski and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, co-founder of City Lights Bookstore

The distributor, which is releasing the film in collaboration with festival Slamdance, is lining up a virtual Q&A to accompany the virtual screening with special guests to be confirmed. Matteo Borgardt directed the documentary, which features lost footage of the cult writer in conversation with Italian journalist Silvia Bizio in 1981. During the evening, the two and others, including Bukowski’s soon-to-be wife Linda Lee Beighle, smoke cigarettes, drink wine and engage in intimate conversations about sex, literature, childhood and humanity. 






Bizio found the video of the interview in her garage in 2014, some 20 years after Bukowski’s death. The interview was shot on U-matic videotapes, which have been digitised and edited with new Super8 footage of Downtown Los Angeles as a backdrop to Bukowski reading poetry. 

U.S. markets set to virtually ‘launch’ the film next month include New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Portland, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Fort Worth, Albuquerque, Ann Arbor, Berkeley, Cleveland and Columbus. The feature originally debuted at Venice in 2016 and played at Slamdance in 2017 but didn’t have a broader release.

Read more


Getting Your Story Straight: Scene 2






Professional coaching tips to help you figure out point of view, structure, and master all the elements of story.⁠⁠ 

Learn more: http://www.thewriterslifeline.com

Getting Your Story Straight: Scene 1



Professional coaching tips to help you figure out point of view, structure, and master all the elements of story.⁠⁠ 

Learn more: http://www.thewriterslifeline.com

Dealing With Your Type-C Creative Mind




For all storytellers—novelists, screenwriters, journalists, nonfiction writers, and children’s book writers.⁠

Learn more about One-on-one coaching to help understand a Type-C personality and equip you with practical tools to make yourself more productive and less frustrated with storytelling at http://www.thewriterslifeline.com/ ⁠ 

Follow Ken's series on IGTV @storymerchant ⁠Facebook @thestorymerchant


Ken's Weekly Book Recommendation!

This week: The Twaesum Aik of Brae MacKenzie (A Romance of Mythic Identity Book 1) by Andrea Aguillard 



 



Brae MacKenzie, a successful San Francisco painter, is a woman who seems to have it all but who's felt a sense of loss and longing since childhood. Her artistic passion hasn't filled that void, and with the untimely death of her charismatic husband, the old pain resurges.

Brae's father senses his daughter's pain and before she embarks for an exhibit in England he hands her a family heirloom hidden away for years...a letter: "Since you are still among the living, your heart is not broken...follow the map," Brae reads, "to Scotland."

The London exhibit, in its ultra-chic hollowness, prompts Brae into taking and advice of that bewildering letter. She hops a train for Glasgow.

When the train goes through a tunnel and emerges in a forest of "Christmas trees," Brae suddenly feels something. This is her stop; she just knows it.

She met at the station by Damon, a stranger, or perhaps not. He becomes her own personal tour guide to the myths and history of a past she never knew--and to a romance she never dreamed of having.






Nicole Conn Launches 'Nicole Conn Films Global (Ncfg)' A Global Destination Hub Dedicated To Showcasing Content For, By And About … Queer Women


Award-winning filmmaker Nicole Conn is announcing the launch of NICOLE CONN FILMS GLOBAL (NCFG), the first ever global destination hub for all-things queer women media content. 
Kicking off on June NCFG’s mission is to provide a digital space where artists, creators and financial investors can come together to create, network and build partnerships to develop new entertainment projects.


Keeping women’s cinema alive, Nicole Conn Films Global is an international group dedicated to the funding and supporting of women’s narrative features as well as other queer content; documentaries, webisodes, etc.  in the 21st Century.

While Hollywood has successfully released more queer-centric films the lack of women/lesbian representation is still a problem. NCFG is committed to producing quality and entertaining Feature Films, Documentaries and TV/Web Series made By, For & About Women and their complex lives.

Through its unique funding model, NCGF aims to keep Women’s Lesbian Cinema alive and thriving, always building its library as well as inviting Membership Artists to be involved with films, specialized event & funding screenings or exhibitions.

“NCFG’s concept is about rallying leaders in our LGBTQ+ entertainment community to work and collaborate together, “says Nicole Conn.

The philosophy behind the unique Hybrid Funding model is about affordability. It’s designed so that queer women can look at their own particular circumstances and contribute something that is completely painless for them financially while also generating the opportunity to be involved in a real way that contributes to their own artistic dreams and visions.

Women from all over the globe will be able to submit their own scripts or other lesbian content so that NCFG can help pool resources as well as set up and connect projects to the right producing entities. There are only 3 criteria that must be met: 1) It’s made By, For & About Queer Women; 2) It’s quality & entertaining; and 3) It has not been seen before.

Further, we are looking for diversity. “Same Rights. Same Fight. NCGF is determined to support all marginalized groups that suffer from inequality, prejudice, and discrimination, and to raise and amplify all the colorful and diverse voices that make up our LGBTQ+ community. NCGF stands in solidarity with all who seek racial equality and justice, affirming that All Black Lives Matter.”

Putting passion into action, CONN is proud to be an active community collaborator teaming up with some of the top LGBTQ players in Arts & Entertainment including OML, Tello Films, LesFlicks, Outtake Voices, Sallyanne Monti and Nicole’s Creative Producing Partner, Lissa Forehan, to name a few.

These groundbreaking pioneers in the LGBTQ entertainment industry are dedicated to advancing professional achievement for lesbians working in all areas of film, video, and other screen-based media to help promote and raise queer women visibility in films/TV & on the web, whether in front and/or behind the camera.

“At OML collaboration has always been in our DNA,” comments Shirin Papillon – Owner/Founder OneMoreLesbian.com “We pride ourselves on having turned the majority of our competitors into collaborators and partners. We believe this is the spirit of Nicole Conn Films Global – that we; filmmakers, content creators, curators, distributors, publishers, etc., will be stronger together.”

Nicole Conn has been an inspiration and an example for all filmmakers to follow your passion and tell your stories. Her films were the entre for most of the community who was so hungry for films when there were few and far between. We are so excited to combine forces to grow this genre!”  says Christin Baker, TELLO FILMS, whom Nicole Conn Films is teaming up with to co-produce “The Lesbian Dating Show.”

A pioneering filmmaker and an iconic figure in the LGBTQ community, Nicole Conn is known not only for having paved the way for lesbian-themed cinema with her cult classic, “Claire of the Moon” but for her acclaimed features “Elena Undone” (which boasts the longest screen kiss in cinema history), “A Perfect Ending,” and “little man”, but also for opening the door for queer female filmmakers.

Read more


Getting Your Story Straight⁠ ⁠

⁠Chapter 6 – What is Drama? 

⁠ ⁠



Professional coaching tips to help you figure out point of view, structure, and master all the elements of story.⁠ ⁠ 

Learn more: 


Ken's Weekly Book Recommendation!⁠


Snowblind by Michael Abbadon




She skis sightless, a monster at her heels!

Eighteen-year-old Kris Carlson needs a second chance. Blinded years before in a freak accident, Kris is trying to restart her life by learning how to ski again—without eyesight. A new audible-radar technology makes this miracle possible.

When the initial trials prove promising, Kris heads off to the mountains for a weekend of skiing with the ski school director and her daughter. But the three women encounter a fierce winter storm and are forced to take refuge in a trapper’s cabin.

Kris soon discovers the trapper’s mauled corpse. It seems a plane has gone down in the storm, and there’s some kind of monstrous beast on the loose.


Story Merchant Film Closet: Contemporary Horror⁠