Dec '15 | Bay Area Video Producer Attains MFA in Writing

Writing has always been part of my job. As a film producer in Los Angeles, if I wasn’t playing therapist to the creatives, or entertaining potential investors, you’d find me in front of my computer writing business plans, motivational emails, grant proposals, strategic blog posts, script notes; sometimes all at once. When I moved to San Francisco and started working as a Bay Area video producer, I added copywriting to my repertoire, spending time crafting and molding the right dialogue, interview questions, and scripts for my corporate clients.

But when a full length memoir started coming out in spurts, spewing and surfacing in the most inappropriate places, I knew I was in new territory. I had made a career out of helping others define and tell their story, but when it came to finding the courage to tell my own, I didn’t know where to start.

That was 2013. Now, thanks to the fine folks at University of San Francisco where this Bay Area video producer has devoted her nights and weekends for the last two and a half years to the craft of writing, I’m thrilled to admit that I not only have another tassel tacked to my cork board, I also have two full length memoirs in the works.

My River Stories is a coming of age memoir about the adventures of an Alaskan family as they homestead on an acre of wild in hopes to create their own business, told through the eyes of a young girl whose only dream was to escape her dishwashing duties and rugged Alaskan surroundings for a career in Hollywood. Exploring themes of courage, escape, loss of innocence, loneliness and survival, My River Stories, weaves a universal tale relatable to any girl who ever dreamt of a life larger than the one her parents lay before her.

Spawned Out is a story of a thirty-year-old Hollywood hopeful and proud member of the Sex and the City era, who bounces between New York City and Los Angeles until her mother’s death forces her to reunite with her eccentric Dad, and return to their childhood home in the wilderness of Alaska; a journey that ultimately has her reevaluating her path, and redefining the meaning of home.

Thanks to the kind folks at Catamaran Literary Reader, an excerpt of Spawned Out, entitled “River of Life,” can be found in their Spring 2014 edition alongside two paintings from my favorite artist: my mother.

It’s a new kind of writing for me, that’s for damn sure. But real art doesn’t exist without risk. Neither does owning your own business. No doubt I’m a better storyteller after this experience, and clients of Patina Pictures will absolutely recognize that. But more important than being a better storyteller, I’m a better listener and audience member. I can quickly discern what’s working, what’s not, and appropriately communication suggestions for improvement. And that, out of everything else I’ve learned over the last two and a half years, is the skill I’m most proud of.

For more information on my personal writing, follow me @kdee_miller. For more corporate storytelling, read my latest copywriting sample here.