Kurtis Scaletta

Information on my books & events

My story, “Azalea,” is included in this remarkable anthology of “first time” stories by a host of YA authors including Carrie Ryan, Saundra Mitchell, Jon Skovron… all of us were members of an online klatch when our first books debuted in 2009. The antho was edited by Jessica Verday and Rhonda Stapleton.

The theme of the book is “first time” experiences. My story “Azalea,” is about various forms of growing. The rest of the anthology offers a lot of variety to sample from — check it out!

It is only available as an e-book; I think you can buy the Nook version through some independent booksellers but do not know how to do it.

Buy it for Kindle | Buy it for Nook

Once again I’m offering my online class again for writers of middle grade fiction. Click here to register.

Here are the description and details:

Many consider ages 8–12, “the middle grades,” to be a golden age for readers. Their novels include classics like Charlotte’s Web, the Ramona series, and the earliest adventures of Harry Potter. Most Newbery winners also fall into this category. In this class, participants will explore some of the qualities that make a book a hit with young readers, with an emphasis on developing a character-driven story.

And here’s some additional information if you’re interested:

• The class is eight weeks long and is mostly asynchronous, i.e., you complete the activities on your own schedule.
• This is an enrichment course and is not for credit.
• You can expect to spend two hours a week participating in class activities.
• Those activities include short readings & recommended readings, live chats, discussion forums, critiques, and miscellaneous short (and hopefully fun) collaborative activities.
• There is no text but there are lots of recommended titles from the MG canon. Note: we may decide as a class to read and discuss one novel — my current class did this!
• I will also be providing private critiques to each participant, reading and responding to “a partial” with or without a cover letter.

I’m excited to teach this class, and synthesize what I’ve learned from a life time of reading, three books under my belt, and ten years in learning technology.

As the Loft’s online program manager, I’m thrilled that we are also offering three new online classes in children & young adult literature, and a fourth that many middle-grade and young-adult writers would enjoy.

• Revising Your Young Adult Novel with Megan Atwood
• Mars Needs Writers:  Writing Science Fiction/Fantasy for Fun and Profit with Lyda Morehouse
• The Business of Writing for Children with Dara Dokas
• Picture Book Writing with Molly Beth Griffin

Go here to see the complete list of classes.

I’ve been writing about the themes that play into Tanglewood Terror, and have been meaning to write about H.P. Lovecraft, the inspiration for the Max Bailey character (and really, the whole darned book). As luck would have it, this played perfectly in to the terrific author Nova Ren Suma’s series of posts by fellow authors about what scares them. Here’s my contribution, but after you read it, browse through the others — it’s a really great series. Then check out Suma’s imaginative and poignant novel, Imaginary Girls.

Eric Parrish pushes people around. He’s a defensive back, after all. He jokes around with his brother and realizes his brother isn’t in on the joke. He’s a bit of a bully. I sketched out Eric that way before bullying became such a huge topic in the news and before my essay was picked up for the Dear Bully anthology, or it might be even a bigger element of the story.

Bullying is a complicated topic. There’s a cliche of the schoolyard thug, Nelson Muntz/Scut Farcus types who shake little kids down for their milk money. Those kinds of kids exist, but they might not know they’re bullies. Or they might be bullying out of desperation, to keep themselves from being victims. Or they might be misunderstood.

Eric’s role as much about reputation as behavior. I think big, husky kids are often assumed to be bullies, or potential threats. I was always a smaller kid, but I could easily figure out what it was like to be a kid like Eric just by flipping expectations. I was quickly filed under “smart, nerdy kid.” Eric is quickly filed under “big, tough kid.” There’s a lot of confirmation bias once you’re labeled. People look for evidence to support their thesis and ignore the evidence that doesn’t fit.

Bullying is really a social activity — kids bully together, winking and nudging one another, seeking reinforcement and approval. It’s a way of bonding and forging unity. Bullying also takes many forms — pushing and shoving, griping, rhetorical re-framing. In a way bullying is even a kind of storytelling: bullies construct a narrative that is riddled with defiance, as if they’re only standing up for themselves. You’ll see this among first graders and among political leaders and everywhere in between.

All fodder for a future novel, because it’s only glancingly treated in Tanglewood.

I’ve been wanting to blog more about Tanglewood Terror and the themes buried in it like mycelial cords. Laurel Snyder issued a pretty good challenge to start with his parents’ divorce/separation, which is part of Eric’s story and part of Rebecca’s story in Laurel’s Bigger than a Breadbox, which comes out in a week or two.

So I’ve been mulling it over, and am not sure I have any wisdom to share. Although the fracture of Eric’s family is integral to the book — the overall feeling that the world is coming apart around him — the book isn’t about divorce. It has more to do with fatherhood.

Eric’s dad is a “cool dad,” but preoccupied with his ambitions and leaves his family to chase his dreams. This compels Eric to be a 13-year-old father figure, of sorts — taking care of his little brother, trying a couple of times to say the appropriate supportive things to his mother — a role he’s not really ready for. From the start of the book, Eric takes way too much responsibility on his husky shoulders. Even his feelings about his parents separating are expressed more as concern for his little brother than himself. Being a tough kid, he’ll never admit to having feelings.

But maybe that’s how divorce always is to older siblings. My favorite scenes in Laurel’s book are the ones between Rebecca and her little brother, when she becomes an emergency backup parent in the same way. The breakups change the roles kids have… they need to feel a void somewhere at the top.