Katherine Doughtie
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The passion to write has been at the core of Katherine Shirek Doughtie's life since early childhood. An only child of divorced parents, she grew up in Southern California in the early 70's. By the time she was in high school she had become angry, idealistic and political. She left Pasadena eager to get involved in the social revolution she had watched evolving out of the 60's.
Katherine worked her way through college, doing anything she could to stay alive and keep in school. At various times while pursuing her studies she was employed as a busboy, waitress, projectionist, legal secretary, stagehand, pizza deliverer and cook. She changed schools several times, finding unexpected avenues as she struggled to sustain her passion to learn; she attended the University of California at Santa Cruz, U.C. Berkeley, and Bennington College before returning to UCSC to get a BA with honors in Literature and Creative Writing. Her thesis project consisted of a 1930's detective novel and accompanying screenplay. She went on to apply to the Screenwriting program in the UCLA Motion Picture and Film school. After being accepted, she returned to Southern California and earned her Masters Degree in 1983.
After graduate school, Katherine spent several years writing scripts and trying to break into Hollywood. She wrote six audio adaptations of short stories by Louis L'Amour, produced as fully dramatized books-on-tape by Bantam Audio. She oversaw the writing of three more adaptations, mentoring other writers through the arduous adaptation process. These productions were cut for radio production and are currently syndicated on over 100 stations nationwide. She went on to write and sell several film scripts based on the most successful adaptations. During this time she also wrote ten original feature scripts, a spec TV episode and a Western epic novel.