Hi! I'm Jack Kentala, a writer and filmmaker based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I live here with my girlfriend, Stephanie, and our two cats, the perfectly-behaved Snickers and the impish Lucy. When I'm not writing, I devour movies, faithfully support Chelsea Football Club, and love music with loud guitars.
Meet Me In The Gameroom is my debut novel, but like many writers, I have a stack of unpublished manuscripts taller than most jockeys. I'm currently working on a novella called Average Student Film, and one of these days I'll edit my one-billion-words-long sci-fi epic, The Chronicle, into something that people would actually want to read.
As a filmmaker, I wrote and directed Transmissions (2008) and Archetype (2012), two nano-budget films of dubious artistic merit. I had to get some mileage out of my BA in filmmaking from Columbia College Chicago. I'm also writing a screenplay for a cheapo adaptation of Gameroom that I'd like to direct sometime before the sun runs out of fuel.
Gameroom partly stems from my lifelong love of video games. Playing the original Super Mario Bros. with my big sister is one of my earliest memories, along with aimlessly wandering in Metroid, repeatedly failing the Turbo Tunnel in Battletoads, and wondering what black magic powered the Game Genie. I also achieved 101% in Donkey Kong 64 on the weekend of its release, which I believe is now formally classified as a behavioral disorder in the DSM.
Snickers (left) and Lucy (right)
Zeke aka Professor Goof. Sadly, he's no longer with us, but he's a major character in Gameroom. Seriously!