Established in 2016…

U.S. Army veteran Nikki Ackerman needed an outlet for her own work. She soon discovered that there was a need to help other aspiring screenwriters in her area, or those that had a story but didn’t know how to tell it.

Nikki didn’t always dream of opening her own business. However, she has always had a knack for helping others. Evident in her resume. While in Landshtul, Germany awaiting an outpatient procedure, she made up her mind it was time to get on with her education. Despite being a lifelong University of Florida fan, and due to family commitments, she ended up attending the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR). That’s where she discovered screenwriting, thanks to Dr. Dave Jauss, one of her many mentors. After receiving her BA in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing and a minor in Film Studies, Nikki decided if she was going to do to grad school it was now or never. Enrolling that very summer at Full Sail University, she pushed through a few rough patches and eventually earned her MFA in Creative Writing for the Entertainment.

Before she received her degree, she was off to New York City with Dr. J. Mark Giese, another mentor from UALR. There, Nikki pitched her thesis project “Tales from the Sandbox” to a panel in hopes of scoring a meeting with the head of development at A&E Networks. A&E had partnered with CINE to present a pitch fest in hopes of finding new scripted content. (Ever hear of the documentary “Love, Gilda”? Nikki’s pitch lost to Lisa and her pitch, which was okay with her.) She had such a good experience with the CINE/A&E pitch fest that Nikki entered again the next year! This time the travel involved was just down to Austin, TX, home of the Austin Film Festival. Again, she came home disappointed they didn’t select her script (the sci-fi drama “The Brigid Chronicles”), but she left even more confident in her abilities to tell a story.

Nikki decided that she could still write and help polish other people’s scripts and that it’s how Kitiara Blue Media, LLC came to be!