BIOGRAPHY

AC Patterson is an artist, writer, and filmmaker who explores the narratives of human experience in his work. He's an accomplished novelist, playwright, essayist, and highly sought-after columnist, producing content for various editorial outlets. AC's a prolific writer, authoring over thirty books and ninety screenplays among his experimental, collaborative, and other writing projects. Patterson's talent for storytelling is evident in his plays, which have been considered for development as feature films and TV shows. He co-produced the IFC music documentary "Cross Over" in 2001 and is the author of the feature film "Maze Voice," expected to be released in late 2024 or early 2025.

Showcasing his ability to merge different art forms, AC has appeared as an actor in two feature films. In 2000, he briefly attended the Universal Studios' DAVE school (Digital Animation and Visual Effects School) during its inaugural year in FL but chose to discontinue to pursue other professional interests. In 2001 he collaborated with several Nashville-based musical artists, animating and producing three experimental short films. AC's experimental films combined music, early CGI, animation, and some of the earliest computer-based interactive film technologies to create his innovative, interactive film compositions akin to today's gaming virtual reality.

Initially trained as an educator, in 1982, Patterson also developed the first known high-school curriculum in Computer Science in the U.S. while teaching and attending the University of Southern Mississippi. In 1985, while working for a small company called "Now Weather," a NOAA and USGS government contractor, Patterson developed the earliest known algorithms to use numeric symbol processing in weather pattern prediction. He's also believed to have invented the earliest television CGA topical geographic weather mapping system, the basis for those widely used by meteorologists in television weather reporting today.  

Throughout his lifetime, AC Patterson has also been an activist for human rights. Working to address the criminalization and conditions of poverty in rural southern minority communities, in the mid-1980s, he helped co-found "The Institute for Community Education & Training" in South Carolina.

AC Patterson is the grandson of scientist and inventor Alonzo Patterson, who, with renowned American engineer Andrew Higgins, invented an important military smokescreen device and co-engineered the troop landing boats used by the Navy in the WW2 Normandy invasion. These boats, officially known as LCVPs, which stands for Landing Craft, Vehicle, or Personnel, have become ubiquitous to naval military operations since then. They are more commonly known as "Higgins Boats" today. AC's grandad and Higgins have been the subjects of many documentaries and are honored in the WW2 Museum in New Orleans. Both former President Eisenhower and Prime Minister Churchill credited Patterson and Higgins' inventions as critically important to the Allied victory in WW2.

In 1979, while at Pearl River College, AC found his "first voice" as a writer. After winning a prestigious collegiate writing competition, he had a chance to meet with the Pulitzer Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and National Medal of Arts winner, Eudora Welty. He often refers to that meeting as "the afternoon that changed my life" and credits Welty for evoking his life-long passion for writing. His winning essay in that writing competition was titled: "The Lord of the Rings: A Struggle for Life," later published in an anthology of Tolkien criticism. This essay was AC's first published work, and Patterson has often claimed he's proudest of it among everything he's written. Not only did he get to meet Eudora Welty, but he often says, "I still can't believe they included me between D.H Lawrence and W.H. Auden in that book!" To this day, Patterson retains his passion for all things Tolkien, often referring to himself as "somewhat a Tolkien scholar." He's still a lifelong fan of Eudora Welty's works.

Later, as a University of Southern Mississippi student, Patterson's life direction was finally sealed. After completing the course of Special Education studies at USM, he decided he also wanted to study science, specifically Computer Science, an emerging discipline in the early 1980s. Heavily weighted in mathematics, theoretical statistics, advanced calculus, and cryptic programming languages, Patterson found these new studies challenging. They were a far cry from his former early childhood psychology and development studies in Special Education.

While enrolled in the university's College of Science and Technology, AC developed a focused interest in the sciences of numerical analysis and theoretical statistics, which eventually grew to become a shared passion with that of writing. In those early years, Patterson became preoccupied with solving continuity equations using numeric approximation. Designing models and methods that gave approximate but accurate numeric solutions in cases where the exact solution was impossible or prohibitively expensive to calculate was a challenge he truly enjoyed. By analyzing complex number systems, Patterson's captivation grew to become a personal research occupation he'd conduct for the remainder of his lifetime. Still, the greater universe was again about to intervene and disrupt his life plans.

In 1982, Patterson met a guest lecturer after a practicum at the University of Southern Mississippi. This man was on the precipice of what would soon become one of the most remarkable careers in motion picture film history. His name was John Dykstra, co-founder of ILM (Industrial Light and Magic), with another fellow named George Lucas, who brought the "Star Wars" saga to the world's movie screens. During his lecture, Dykstra expressed his very great love of movies and the importance of the emerging science of computer graphics animation (CGA) to future filmmaking.

Only a few years earlier, in 1977, Dykstra had designed and built the first computer-controlled, motion-control camera system, dubbed the "Dykstraflex." This camera system revolutionized the film industry. Dykstra deservedly won his first Oscar for its invention, earning a lot of money and growing his and Lucas' small business into a multi-billion-dollar monolith in succeeding decades. More than sixty movies later, having firmly established himself as the most important scientist in motion picture history, Dykstra now defines the essence of "science" in the art of filmmaking and "The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences" too. He was a thoroughly engaging speaker that morning, and AC was once again hooked, this time on applying his passion for science and writing to making movies. After listening to Dykstra connecting the dots that day between making movies and Patterson's passions for writing and storytelling, with his new interests in the applications of mathematics and science, as the gamblers say, "he was all in."

Patterson's initial efforts at becoming a published author were a disaster. After composing his first prospective work, a book, and editing it satisfactorily, he sought a publisher or agent to represent him. Like many starting writers, AC was naive about the business side of professional writing. Consequently, a small portion of that work's sample he'd shared was plagiarized and later developed as a broader screenplay, then produced as a commercial film. At the time, AC couldn't finance a legal recourse, and he presumed that publicly doing so would probably hurt any future commercial chance he might have as a career writer. The experience was incredibly discouraging, and for a time, AC continued to write without any further attempts to commercialize his work.

Over time, Patterson amassed an extensive portfolio of various written works, including essays and screenplays, the latter endeavor motivated by the formerly attempted publishing disaster. Patterson soon realized he could use his writing skills to be a screenwriter and a  novelist. Still, he lacked any formal education or experience with the craft other than as a dedicated audience member. It was from the audience that AC began to study this craft.

By 2000, Patterson had written several works, among them more than a dozen screenplays, but he found himself dissatisfied with their quality. Realizing this fact, over the next fifteen years, he adopted a strange but satisfying habit of attempting to attend the screening of at least one commercial film in a theater, wherever he found himself, every day. In this way, from the seats, he learned screenwriting. While he didn't manage to see a film every day as planned, many times due to the limited number of releases in his market, he did average approaching 300 per year and nearly 4400 film screenings over 15 years.

Patterson immersed himself by studying every aspect of film production across various genres. From the audience seats, he received a film writing and production education comparable to any film school and, to date, has written over 90 screenplays during his lifetime as a consequence.

After his disastrous first attempt at commercializing his writing, Patterson was trepidatious about trying again, choosing instead to keep his works close to his vest. In 2009, through a friend in the music industry in Nashville, Patterson contacted the publishing industry again, placing two of his earliest plays in the market for potential production. Both plays were optioned almost immediately. However, AC has only recently publicly revealed the existence of the other plays he's written, not including his completed books and other works.

If you've wandered around this website, Patterson's recently launched YouTube channel, or his other social media, you may have noticed many of AC's books haven't been publicly released yet. Many of his plays are also in the late editing stages of book adaptation, while AC remains reluctant to publish everything simultaneously. Patterson has recently decided to adapt and publish books based on around thirty of his plays, among those he deems his best stories.

As a prolific writer with a penchant for storytelling, Patterson's bringing his rich characters and unique stories to life in a new way over the next three years. As a seasoned writer, he knows that great stories can come from anywhere, so he's finally excited to share his unique characters, stories, and perspectives with a broader audience. Whether you're already a fan of his or new to his work, no doubt his upcoming books will capture your imagination and leave you wanting more. Check out descriptions of his forthcoming titles, his YouTube channel, Blog, and Podcast while you're here, or click here to contact him and join his reader mailing list.