Cajun Household Wisdom: "You Know You Still Alive If It's Costin' You Money!" [Hardcover]

Kenneth Aguillard Atchity (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 82 pages
• Publisher: Longmeadow Pr; 1st edition (January 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0681007729
• ISBN-13: 978-0681007727
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 6.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,101,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

With more than forty years experience in the publishing world, and over fifteen years in entertainment, I absolutely love being a "story merchant"--writer, producer, teacher, and literary manager, responsible for launching dozens of books and films. My life's passion is finding great storytellers and turning them into bestselling authors and screenwriters--and making films which send their stories around the world.

I've produced 26 films, including "Joe Somebody" (Tim Allen; Fox), "Life or Something Like It" (Angelina Jolie; Fox), "The Amityville Horror" (NBC), "Shadow of Obsession" (NBC), "The Madam's Family" (CBS). "Meg" (New Line), "Demon Keeper" (Fox 2000), "Henry's List of Wrongs" (New Line), and Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not (starring Jim Carrey; Paramount) are approaching production. Full film bio at www.imdb.com.

My 14 books include books for writers at every stage of their career. Based on my teaching, managing, and writing experience, I've successfully built bestselling careers for novelists, nonfiction writers, and screenwriters from the ground up. Clients include bestsellers Steve Alten, Royce Buckingham, Jamise Dames, Noire, Shirley Palmer, Tracy Price-Thompson, Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not!, Cheryl Saban, and Governor Jesse Ventura. Now, as chairman and CEO of Atchity Entertainment International, Inc., my Story Merchant companies, www.aeionline.com and www.thewriterslifeline.com, provide a one-stop full-service development and management machine for commercial and literary writers who wish to launch their storytelling in all media---from publishing and film and television production, to Web presence and merchandising & licensing.

I was born in Eunice, Louisiana; and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, where I attended Rockhurst High School (and was editor in chief of The Prep News). After undergraduate work at Georgetown (A.B., English/Classics), and getting my Ph.D. in comparative literature from Yale, I served as professor and chairman of comparative literature and creative writing at Occidental College (Faculty Achievement Award; published articles, reviews, short stories, and poems in major journals and magazines throughout the world).


Editor of CQ: Contemporary Quarterly: Poetry and Art

Co-founder and -editor (with Marsha Kinder of Dreamworks: An Interdisciplinary Journal Devoted to the Relationship between Dreams and the Arts (authors published and/or advisory board included Joyce Carol Oates, Ursula Leguin, Ernest Cardenal, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Paul Bowles, John Fowles, Hubert Selby, John Rechy, Stephen King, Georges Simenon, Carlos Fuentes, Eugene Ionesco).

Served as Fulbright Professor of American Studies at the University of Bologna

Distinguished Instructor, UCLA Writers Program

Regular columnist-reviewer for The Los Angeles Times Book Review (involved in establishing the Los Angeles Times Book Awards)

Vice-president of P.E.N. Los Angeles

I'ves made numerous radio and television appearances, and given inspirational keynote talks at writers conferences, speaking on the world of professional storytelling, the storyteller's market, the storyteller's process, creativity, dreams, and various academic and entertainment and publishing related subjects.

I wrote and served as on-camera talent for Synapse Technology's "Columbus: The Voyage of Discovery," and consulted for the Discovery Channel's series, "The Power of Dreams."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars De longest distance between two points is trew de dance hall, November 15, 2002

By 

Michele L. Worley (Kingdom of the Mouse, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cajun Household Wisdom: "You Know You Still Alive If It's Costin' You Money!" (Hardcover)

Atchity knows what he's talking about. The pithy sayings herein have been collected over a lifetime, not only from the kitchens where big family dinners were eaten, but the back porches where some of the best talking happened after the cousins had gone home. Spelling-wise, he sets down the collected sayings mostly as his ear caught them and how they're pronounced in French Louisiana (e.g. sha instead of the French cher). He throws in a small glossary at the end of the book, and where the sayings need extra context (not often), adds a little commentary.

"If he's so smart, how come he allays has sumptin' ta do?"

"You in big trouble w'en you have ta apologize foh bein' yo'self."

"You doan got ta look too much below de surface if you got enough surface." (With a short paragraph explaining how in rice farming country, land doesn't have to have gold in it or oil under it; a lot of land in itself is good.)

"Dere got ta be sumptin' ta him - 'cause nobody laks him."

"She's as noivous as de cat in a room full of rockers."

"Doan waste yo' time wid little t'oughts. Scare yo'self big!"

Not that the book is *just* family wisdom; Atchity alternates batches of sayings with small primers about the Cajun way, as well as some candid photos. :) "How Dey Got Dis-A-Way" (just what it says, which also points out that "Creole" is defined one way in South Louisiana where Atchity was born, and another way in New Orleans - and that New Orleans is distinct from 'South Louisiana'.). In "Learning the Ropes", Atchity illustrates a typical characteristic (doing everything 'in a way 10 times harder than necessary') with his mother's long fight to bring in a catfish - and she *still* hadn't brought a net (photo to prove that it took 3 of her lures). "A Happy Death" (at Jax Brewery) is a good story. "Vivre Pour Manger: Live to Eat" (love that Cajun food), "Life Preservers in the Sea of Stories" (Churchill *stole* that alligator story!), and "Poetic Justice" ('nother good funny story).