Mount Humphreys. Located in the eastern Sierra Nevada, this peak is the 13th highest in California and the highest in the Bishop area.
Jeffrey Baker Kwitny
Born in Hollywood on September 8, 1951, I grew up more or less happily in Southern California. Why not? We have the beaches; I surfed. It’s where movies are made; I dreamt of becoming a filmmaker. But then, in 1970, as the Vietnam War raged on, I was drafted, one of 2.2 million American men who were drafted into military service between 1964 and 1973.
Having received a conscientious objector (C.O.) designation from the Pasadena draft board, I moved to San Francisco to complete two years of “alternative” (civilian) service.
After completing my service (counselor at the Recreation Center for the Handicapped; guitar teacher for Mother Goose Inc.), I moved to Berkeley to study at the University of California, where I earned a B.A. in Comparative Literature with an emphasis on Milton, Chaucer and Shakespeare. The classics and French literature absorbed my closest attention. The French symbolists, especially Mallarmé, Verlaine and Rimbaud, as well as novelists Hugo, Zola and Flaubert, have had a particularly lasting impact on my creative life. I later earned an M.A. in English Literature at UC Irvine. My master’s thesis was entitled “Duality of Spirit and Body: Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.“ Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain introduced me to satire as an effective catalyst for social change.
After college I spent about 20 years working in the film industry, writing feature screenplays including “Undercurrent,” “Creature II,” “White Cobra Express,” an early draft of “Beyond the Door III,” and television scripts including episodes of “Nothing Sacred” and “The Twilight Zone.” In animation, I wrote for Warner Bros.’ “Animaniacs,” for which I nabbed a daytime Emmy award; “Histeria!,” a satirical spin on history; “Road Rovers,” a Cartoon Network staple; “Pinky and the Brain,” produced by WB and Amblin’ Entertainment”; and an episode of Cartoon Network’s “Cow and Chicken.” It was a wacky phase of my writing career.
Over the years I took on various film production jobs (editing, cinematography, production assistant) to fill in the blanks.
As director, I helmed two low-budget horror flicks: Iced and the supernatural nightmare Beyond the Door III, shot in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. I also directed the Houston Film Festival, Gold Jury Prize-winning drama Lightning in a Bottle, my last feature effort.
Falling into creative disenchantment, however, (I’d hoped to make suspense thrillers based on scripts I’d written, alas, never to be), I left the movie biz to pursue a career in academia.
I taught English courses at two Los Angeles private schools for 21 years.
I’ve since launched a new career—my latest incarnation, if you will—this time as a novelist. My first book, Desolation Lake, was published in 2019. Falling Stars Over Belgrade followed in 2021. I recently completed a new novel, a psychological thriller entitled Painted Blind., which I hope will find a publisher soon.
I’m publisher of LINE BY LINE BOOKS and, up until recently, a weekly arts newsletter, THE KWITNY REPORT, which ran for two years.
I live with my wife, a school nurse, in Southern California. We have three children.