Kurtis Scaletta's Blog

I've gotten into two discussions recently — one real, one virtual — where people discussed and mostly disparaged the "problem novel."

What's a problem novel? Answer: nobody really agrees. I mean, it's hard to find a novel without a problem, right? But the term was indistinguishable from young adult fiction when I was a teenager. You have to understand that the 70s and 80s, amazingly, didn't have a lot of paranormal/fantasy fiction for teen readers. (Basically because teenagers just read the p...

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Check out my awesome new banner, courtesy of author/illustrator/teacher/crit group pal Jonathan Roth. If you're aggregating this site, you need to click on over to my actual website. There are more in the works. Stay tuned.

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What British literary figure who truly had a word for everything was born 300 years ago today, on September 18, 1709? (Enter Here)

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I asked people to name three Newbery Award winners had the first and last name of a main character in their titles. There are several, but it gets a bit complicated. I try to keep the questions short and sweet, and this one could have had a bunch of asterisks.

For example, do initials count? (M.C. Higgins the Great) Do nicknames? (Maniac Magee) Do pets? (Ginger Pye) And is Mrs. Frankweiler a "main character"? (From the Mixed Up Files, etc.)

I decided all of them do count. But one thing I put...

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"You know, Tom, I have occasionally toyed with the notion that an elephant is somewhat like a novel."

I try to think how an elephant could possibly, in any form, resemble a novel.

"Those ears — those legs — the trunk — she is such an irrational beast! She is a collection of improbabilities!"

- Passage from Christopher Nicholson's The Elephant Keeper

I have read many books about elephants, in my life, and three recently. Sometimes the elephants are mostly a plot device (Water for Elephants...

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Several Newbery award winning books have both the first and last name of a main character in their titles. Name any three. (Enter Here)

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If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know one of my favorite things to complain about are "rules" of writing. I don't mean grammatical rules (I'm for those… well, most of them), but little bits of conventional wisdom that have a little life of their own through writing manuals and conferences and workshops. They mostly boil down to a list of don'ts and nevers and have to do with adverbs, prologues, narrative summary, and so forth. In fact, it led to one of my most popular posts

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I asked what children's book author's stories inspired songs by Metallica and Carole King… I just love that those two artists have anything in common. I do respect them both a lot, but they represent different decades of my life. Master of Puppets never makes it to my CD player anymore; Tapestry does.

The answer is Maurice Sendak. Excuse me while I take on my Casey Kasem voice:

First, here's Carole King with "I'm Really Rosie": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhVTgDKs3l4

And now Metallica, with ...

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For the last few weeks I've been going to a comedy club about once a week as my friend Brandi ascended through the rounds of the Funniest Person in the Twin Cities contest, sponsored by the ACME Comedy Club. She went to the final round last night and got fifth place, which is pretty impressive. The competition in the final round was really tough; any one of them could have won and I wouldn't have been surprised.

Her most successful joke is about walking in on her boy friend and her best...

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