As one of the finalists of Writers Digest’s annual poetry competition for 2024, Katherine Atwell Herbert welcomed the pat on the back for her long-time, but barely “commercially” pursued interest in poetry. More currently she has been focusing her writing on mystery/crime short stories and has recently completed her first full mystery novel.
Before she finished post-graduate classroom work in film at the University of Southern California and Arizona State University, the author was writing newspaper film reviews, interviews and features. It was inevitable that her path would lead to Hollywood.
After attracting an agent with her very first script, she moved to Los Angeles and began working in the business. At DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group she was a script analyst and the executive assistant to the vice president of production. Later she became the development director for a production company at MGM Television and worked with Backroads Productions preparing films for production.
She also analyzed scripts for Fox Broadcasting, Via-Showtime, Lightstorm, and others including Multimedia, Carolco and IRS Films. Her script writing includes feature film screenplays, rewrites of screenplays, and episodes for television shows including Trial by Jury, Murder She Wrote, and Quantum Leap, among others.
Her resume also includes writing national magazine articles for such publications as Young Miss, Teen, Dynamic Years and others, and articles for various newspapers as well writing for two feature sections of The Arizona Republic newspaper.
The writer-analyst has won several national and local awards for her work from the National Federation of Press Women, Arizona Authors Association, and the Society of Southwestern Authors. She was nominated as an Outstanding Young Woman in America, and is included in Who's Who of American Women, Who's Who in Entertainment, and Who's Who in the West.
Her books include: The Perfect Screenplay: Writing It And Selling It, Selling Scripts to Hollywood and Writing Scripts Hollywood Will Love, which went into a second edition.