Biographical sketch of
Michael McKown, co-founder and president

I’ve been all about words and stories since I was a kid in 1950s Los Angeles. Stories captivated me, and still do.

At recess time in elementary school, nearly all the students ran out to the playground. Tetherball or kickball, anyone? The alternative was gathering around the classroom steps to listen to a teacher read stories. That’s where you could find me and a few others, every weekday, every recess.

There were no business or personal computers, so typing was done on ponderous, heavy typewriters. I learned to type in middle school. I even won a typewriter of my own when I finally hit 40 words per minute.

My college major was journalism. Eventually I joined the Navy and served from April, 1966 through December, 1969. My rating was journalist, and in that capacity published stories that created a lot of controversy. I worked in communications, on various newspapers and magazines, on shore and at sea. In my capacity as a writer, I helped sailors in the ship’s boiler division report an abusive officer, who was forcibly retired.

I’d long loved German shepherd dogs, and when a sport called schutzhund came to the United States from West Germany, I volunteered to help set up a national organization to promote and administer the sport. Schutzhund involves tracking, obedience and protection, with points awarded for performance. We called it the United Schutzhund Clubs of America, and it was founded in 1975. I created and ran its bimonthly magazine.

In 1979, I left that club to form a commercial publication, called Dog Sports Magazine. I served as editor and publisher for 22 years, then sold it.

In 2002, I bought this domain name, got the site ranked on search engines for ghostwriting services, and soon had more inquiries than I could handle. One day I received an email from a young book editor fresh out of college. He asked whether I could send overflow work his way. I told him I needed someone to do nearly all the work. A basic one-page contract was drawn up, and we were partners for 15 years. In 2017, he left to pursue a career as a novelist, screenwriter and film director.

At that point, the partnership was converted to a corporation, and I set about finding 20-plus writers to replace the one who had departed. And I’ve been here ever since.