Othello Bach’s Certificates and Awards
1959 – Graduated High School
1960 – Graduated Draughon’s Business School in Wichita Falls, TX.
1962 – Wrote my first book, my memoir, Cry into the Wind. It was rejected by an editor who said “Things like this haven’t happened since Dickens wrote about them.” He also suggested I choose a less pretentious pseudonym. So I put it away and decided to write fiction.
1970 – LA Valley Jr. College to study fiction writing. Got lucky! My teacher was Irwin Porges, the top screenplay writer in Hollywood during the 70s.
1972 – Avon Books published my first novel. House of Secrets. It became a bestseller.
1974 – Zebra Books published my second thriller, Satan’s Daughters. 1975 – Zebra republished Satan’s Daughters with a new title: “Whispers from the Dark; and it became a bestseller, again.
1976 – Was hired to teach Creative Writing at UCI and Cypress College. I taught at UCI for 8 years and Cypress for 13 years while continuing to write and compose music.
1977–1979–I became a reader for a small publisher in CA. Read and recommended and submitted my reviews prior to publication.
Early 80s – I studied at the Hypnotism Training Institute and received “Advanced Hypnotherapy Certification.”
As soon as I received certification, I opened a hypnotherapy office in Santa Ana, called it “Advanced Hypnotherapy Center”. I focused on abuse recovery and weight loss, and had a booming practice from day one. I continued teaching at UCI and Cypress because they were both evening classes and didn’t interfere with my hypnotherapy clients.
Mid-80s – A national teacher’s organization hired me to do a 3-state tour, teaching writing. They created the itinerary which went from Southern to Northern CA, through Organ, and Washington state – with several classes in each state. I closed the hypnotherapy for 6 weeks to do it. I have no idea how many hundreds of students I spoke to; the classes were all waiting when I arrived, and were held in hotel meeting rooms.
1984 – I received a “Recognition Award” from the Orange County Writer’s Assoc. for “The most books sold in one year.” I had sold 8 children’s books. Caedmon Books was the publisher. Three of them - Whoever Heard of a Fird, Lilly, Willy and the Mail-Order Witch, and Hector McSnector and the Mail-Order Christmas Witch were musicals. Over 100 licensees signed on to “Fird” and dozens of toys and other children’s products were sold. All of three books were recorded by celebrities – Joel Grey and Tammy Grimes.
1991 – Membership in Hypnosis Examining Council of CA.
1992 – I earned a Doctor of Divinity Degree and was Pastor of a small Christian church in CA for 5 years.
2000 – Moved to Indiana – was approached by an Elder of the Disciples of Christ Church and asked to apply for the position of pastor. I did, and was accepted. I remained minister there for 6 years.
2001 – I was also hired as a columnist for Kokomo Tribune. Did that for 8 years.
2002 – I married. After I settled down, I remembered I had written my memoir. I read it… liked it, and sent it to Seven Locks Press. (the small publisher who hired me as a reader in the 70s.) His current reader liked it, and it was published in 2006.
2017–2018 – I wrote and illustrated several books wrote a new musical, and painted 50 pictures.
2021 – my novel, Simon Sees was optioned for a movie. It’s now in pre-production.
2022 –
American Library Association selected my memoir Cry into the Wind as one of this year’s books to promote and put in
every library in America.