Career
Michael Ventura commenced his career as a journalist at the Austin Sun, a counter-culture bi-weekly newspaper that published in the 1970s. Ventura is best known for his long-running column, "Letters at 3 Master of Arts", which first appeared in Los Angeles Weekly in the early 1980s and continued in the Austin Chronicle until 2015. He has published three novels:,, and
He is currently completing another novel, about Miriam of Magdala, an excerpt from which was published in the third issue of the CalArts literary journal Black Clock in 2005.
He is the author of two essay collections, Shadow-Dancing in the United States.A. (1985) (out of print) and Letters at 3 Master of Arts: Reports on Endarkenment (1994). With psychologist James Hillman, Ventura co-authored the 1992 bestseller We"ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy - And the World"s Getting Worse.
He appears as a fictional character in Steve Erickson"s 1996 novel, Amnesiascope. He wrote the screenplay for Echo Park (1986), among other films, including Roadie (1980).
He curated the Sundance Festival"s 1989 retrospective on John Cassavetes.
I"m Almost Not Crazy: John Cassavetes, the Manitoba and His Work (1984).