Mudville

Latest Book: Mudville (Knopf Books for Young Readers)

Welcome to Moundville, where it’s been raining for longer than 12-year-old Roy McGuire has been alive. Most people say the town is cursed-right in the middle of their biggest baseball game against rival town Sinister Bend, black clouds crept across the sky and it started to rain. That was twenty-two years ago . . . and it’s still pouring.

Baseball camp is over, and Roy knows he’s in for a dreary, soggy summer of digging ditches in the mud, pretending his dad’s meals are edible, and wishing he were still playing ball. But when he returns home, Roy finds a foster kid named Sturgis sprawled out on his couch. As if this isn’t weird enough, just a few days after Sturgis’s arrival, the sun comes out. No one can explain why the rain has finally stopped, but as far as Roy’s concerned, it’s time to play some baseball. It’s time to get a Moundville team together-with Roy catching and Sturgis pitching-and finish what was started twenty-two years ago. It’s time for a rematch.

Kurtis Scaletta makes his literary debut with this witty, heartfelt novel about fathers and sons, brothers and baseball, and a whole lot of rain. Buy now from Indiebound.com, Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, or Borders.com.

More about the Author:

Web site: http://kurtisscaletta.com

I was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, but moved a lot, mostly as a kid. In order, I lived in Louisiana, New Mexico, England, North Dakota, Liberia (which is in Africa), the suburbs of Washington, D.C., Brazil (which is in South America; they speak Portuguese, not Spanish), North Dakota (again), Kansas, Maine, and Minnesota. I’ve lived in Minnesota since 1995. For all that time I’ve worked at the University of Minnesota. I live with my wife Angela and five (!) cats: Torii, Bertie, Lucy, Pippi, and Charlotte. See our feline clan here.

I’ve been writing most of my life, but decided in 2002 or 2003 to focus on stories for children and young adults. I wrote a story about two hikers who run into a moose, which was rejected by several magazines, and a story about a circus elephant who lives on a dairy farm that was rejected as a picture book and as a short novel. In 2004 I started a book about a baseball game that was in a very long rain delay. I finished a draft and stuck it in a drawer before I sent it to anyone.

In 2005, a few days before my 37th birthday, I found an envelope addressed to me. It was in my own handwriting. It was the SASE, or Self Addressed Stamped Envelope, I’d included with a story I sent to Cicada magazine a few months before. I was sure that only rejections were sent in the SASE, and that acceptance letters would come in the publisher’s stationery. I reluctantly opened the envelope anyway, and found out they wanted to buy the story! That letter is now framed and hanging over the desk where I work. (The story is in the November 2006 edition of Cicada, and is about a high school kid who writes very bad poems just to drive his English teacher crazy.)

About the same time, my wife read the baseball novel and liked it and told me to clean it up and give it a chance. I did, and sent it to a few agents. One of them also represents a friend of mine. She liked the story, but asked me to make some changes. I did, and then she sold it to Knopf. (I learned that the “K” in Knopf is pronounced. I’d always said “Nopf,” but it’s pronounced “Kahnapf.”) My editor at Knopf is a very thoughtful reader, and she recommended some more changes. I made most of them, and the book is better for them. I found out then that lot of writing a book is what happens after you write it!

I think books should have a credits list, like movies. While my name is the only one that appears on the book, there are a lot of people who added this or that to the finished product. Some are friends and other writers, but the most important are my wife, my agent, and my editor.

Right now I’m working a book set in West Africa, involving a boy who befriends one of the world’s deadliest snakes.

More biographical tidbits can be found in this series of posts.

Related posts:

1. Query Letter Critique Clinic from Author Kurtis Scaletta