KENNETH ATCHITY: THE STORY THAT COUNTS

He may be Earth's only multi-millennial Renaissance man: The only guy in L.A. who can discourse at length on the works of Aeschylus (likely the only man in Hollywood who can pronounce the name) and simultaneously close a deal with Angelina Jolie.

On face, Kenneth J. Atchity seems to embody many contradictions: The Louisiana-born, Jesuit-schooled scholar of Classics speaks four languages and can read in seven. He holds degrees from Georgetown University and Yale. He has been an instructor at Occidental College and a Fulbright Professor at the University of Bologna. Atchity has edited several literary journals and he has enjoyed successful stints as a print and broadcast journalist. He has published books ranging from collections of his poetry to Classical collections of Greek and Roman literature to highly-praised guides for aspiring authors and screenwriters.

Atchity has also authored librettos performed by the New York Philharmonic, and he has carved out a career as a successful Hollywood producer.

Atchity's time is now chiefly preoccupied by his management agency, AEI, and its companion organization "The Writer's Lifeline," a training ground for aspiring authors and screenwriters.

Under the auspices of AEI, Atchity recently served as producer/executive producer for two films scripted by his client, John Scott Shepherd: Joe Somebody, starring Tim Allen, and Life, or Something Like It starring the aforementioned Angelina Jolie. AEI also manages numerous novelists and nonfiction authors. Atchity's recent success stories on the book front include thriller writer Steve Alten, whose first novel Meg - a page-turner about a Jurassic-age shark swimming present day waters- cracked the New York Times bestseller list and netted a seven figure film deal from Disney, as well as the world's most improbable political figure, Jesse Ventura, who AEI shepherded onto the bestseller lists twice in four years.

Some might argue the distance between Anaximander and a prehistoric shark comprises a bewildering career arc.

The man who wrote Yale's longest-thesis-in-the-shortest-time would disabuse them of that notion: It is, he would likely argue, all about telling a great story.