We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Katherine Mk Mitchell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Katherine MK below.
Katherine MK, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
I would say that while I have never failed at anything I started to do, sadly, I have never reached the pinnacle I wanted to reach. I knew all the time that I am capable of total recognition as a writer, my reaching out to people for guidance and support misfired. Women whom I have admired did not respond or worse, demeaned me in one form of another. That kind of treatment devastated me greatly and it took me enormous amounts of time to recover and be able to go forward. I had hindrances of many kinds, as a woman, as an athlete, even through religion, through unsupportive family and friends who used me. Still, each time I recovered from the pain, I had to go forward, I had to write, I had to promote my work, I had to put on a smiling face and network with people for whom often I had no respect. So my mission is ME. Even without help, even without steadfast love, I found a way to express myself, to seek out respect for myself but admittedly, I have not yet reached my pinnacle. I still have to work on that.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I was born to write. As an adolescent, writing creatively for schoolwork came naturally. Later on, life became harder for me due to outside elements like wars, revolutions, migration, restarting from scratch and always finding relief in writing poems or short pieces memorializing the life I was experiencing. Instead of being confused and lost, I innately tried to be the best. The best salesperson at Woolworth’s, the best cocktail waitress on weekends, the best legal secretary, the best mother. Since being the best was and is my basic need, I was always studying, going to school, taking classes to become the best at my next chapter of life. Today, I am educated enough to give seminars on various aspects of writing, also on healthy living and on self-respect. My great Mentor, the late Dr. Charles Y Nakamura of UCLA university helped me to deal with expectations in a positive way and face everything while looking for the upside. If I am a brand, it’s not my services but my attitudes that are worth viewing and possibly analyzing.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
There I was, working a full-time legal secretarial job and writing most nights when my daughter was asleep. I was in my early thirties, dedicated to everything I was doing. I wrote full screenplays on “speculation,” which means without it being a paid assignment. But I had an agent and one day he called to meet him for dinner, he had good news. Indeed, my screenplay was under consideration at the Blake Edwards Company and we should hear from them any day with an offer. What could be more exhilarating than the possibility of Julie Andrews or Sally Kellerman doing my leading woman character! I was in seventh heaven. But now came the payoff. My agent invited me to his hotel room.
And that was the Hollywood I knew. The “Tit-for-Tat” as it were. Luckily and also unluckily, despite of the moment at hand, the production company got into a huge lawsuit with its development vice president and my script went by the wayside. I kept thinking if their battle had taken place a week or two later, I would have had a contract and their in-house battle would not have dictated the future of my script. So you see, one moment I was on top of the world and the very next moment I was in the deepest gutter. I was crippled emotionally and luckily for having a child and having a job, I could not devote my life to suffering. I had to get up and write the next script and get another agent and stop worrying about what wasn’t.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
Somehow, I do not think that non-creatives struggle. I do not believe that they think outside the box. Boxes, as guidelines, are good and needed. However, once you have attained all the information that makes you function inside the box you should want to go outside it. If you don’t have a need to experiment, the curiosity to see what else there is, your life is small. I don’t know how to live a small life because I am too interested in everything. I worked in a public relations office in Los Angeles when I was young. What I have never forgotten was the owner, Fran Hynds, saying that a good publicist can take a glass of water and make it interesting and sell it. And to me, that is life outside the box.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.katherinemitchellauthor.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Katherine-MK-Mitchell/100066543319372/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherine-mk-mitchell-2405b6163/
Image Credits
Candace Carson, Sarasota /Red pants outfit