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Meet Me In The Gameroom is my debut novel, but like many writers, I have a stack of unpublished manuscripts taller than most jockeys.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 in 1999, which I believe is now classified as a behavioral disorder in the DSM.
About The Kitties
We adopted Snickers (left) in 2017, and that little tuxedo kitty turned 12 this past Halloween. She loves chasing crumpled paper balls, snoozing on laps, and watching Bird TV, e.g. the squirrels and birds on the feeders in the backyard. Like most cat owners, in addition to her proper name, we call her Snicks, Snicklepickle, Sneaker, Sneak, Snickerdoodle, Doodle, Doodlebug, or whatever else randomly sticks.
Lucy (right) is a 5-year-old flamepoint Siamese we adopted in early 2021. She can be a bit of a punk bitch to her older sister, though sometimes she'll try to groom a sleeping Snickers like she's the oldest. It usually ends in a little flurry of paws, but no one gets hurt. Lucy chomps on errant shoelaces, loves to sit in boxes, and spelunks under blankets in search of a cozy kitty cave. Her nicknames include Little Chonker, Tato, Goose, and Luce Goose.
Zeke, aka Professor Goof (Professor Emeritus of Advanced Goof Studies), sadly is no longer with us, but he's a major character in Gameroom. Seriously! He had a tough life before we adopted him in 2017, and we gave him a nice, comfy home for his golden years. That floofy, handsome boy always had something to say, from his endless hunginess to his uncanny ability to answer trivia. He loved to fling around plastic straws, chase his rubber clown nose, and shyly ask for belly rubs. He left us far too soon, but he's immortalized in Gameroom, and we'll always remember our orange little-old-man boy.