Archive for the News & Events Category

Just in time for baseball season, two more Topps League books hit the shelves today! Chad is in his second season as bat boy with the Pine City Porcupines, and (as usual) doing his best to help the players with “magic cards” from his vast collection. In Book 5 he tries to find the right card to help the easily steamed manager from getting ejected, but catcher-comedian Wayne Zane’s suggestion, “Billy Smiles,” just makes things worse. A later attempt at mending the feud between the manager and umpire is even worse, making the famously cool-headed umpire blow his top. In Book 6, Chad tries to help a new player keep a hot streak alive, give an injured player a second chance, and break in an overly eager new bat boy. This has been an insanely fun series to write, and these books are no exception. Hope you enjoy them too!

Thanks to supergenius Jodi Chromey for helping me give my website the fresh new look it sorely needed. I really dig the new home page (that’s all Jodi’s handiwork). Updates on my books and events are now under “Latest News” (as they were on previous incarnations of the website), and everything else is where it’s always been. If you’re an email subscriber please click on over to www.kurtisscaletta.com and check it out.

I recently guest blogged over at Geoff Herbach’s “I’m With Stupid” blog over here. Herbach is the author of Stupid Fast, Nothing Special, and the pending Stupid Fast sequel, I’m with Stupid. He’s a Minnesotan I’ve only seen in person once and that was in Chicago — go figure. Find out more about his excellent books over here.

 

I wrote about books & boys over at The Writer’s Block, the Loft Literary Center’s blog. Please check it out!

Since I have your attention, please see my two classes coming in winter/spring:

Beyond Farts and Firetrucks: Writing Books For and About Boys (online class, begins January 28). Here I am taking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2XBWKjSYtw

Chapter Book Basics (face-to-face, April 13)

This cover is so stunning that I honestly teared up when I first saw it. The artist is Tim Jessell, and you can see more of his work here: http://www.timjessell.com.

I now also have a page for The Winter of the Robots, which you can find under My Books above. I will post more info to that page as it becomes available (e.g., where to buy it, what reviewers said about it, etc.)

What is this book about? It’s about kids who build robots and eat a lot of cheeseburgers. Their robots fight each other, but even though the kids are rivals they have to team up and build a big robot to fight an even bigger monster robot that lurks in an abandoned junkyard. It is set in my own neighborhood.