Hi! I'm Jack Kentala, a writer and filmmaker based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I live here with my girlfriend, Stephanie, and our cats, the impish Lucy and cheddar boy Tails. When I'm not writing, I devour movies, faithfully support Chelsea Football Club, love music with loud guitars, and eat far more peanut butter than the suggested serving size.
Meet Me In The Gameroom is my debut novel, but like many writers, I have a stack of unpublished manuscripts taller than most jockeys.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 in the dank pits of hell submission process for Average Student Film, about a group of undergrads at a film school whose freshman final project begins to fall apart in many hilarious ways. One of these days I'll edit my obscenely-long, seven-part sci-fi epic, The Chronicle, into a length 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 low-rent adaptation of Gameroom that I'd like to direct sometime before the planet runs out of potable water.
Gameroom is inspired by 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, Past and Present
Tails is a 2-year-old little cheddar boy that we just adopted! As pictured, Steph and I thinks he likes it here.
Lucy (right) is a 6-year-old flamepoint Siamese we adopted in early 2021. She loves to chomp on shoelaces, sit in cardboard boxes, and spelunk under blankets in search of a cozy kitty cave.
Sadly, we said goodbye to Snickers (left) in March 2026. We adopted her in 2017, and that little 12-year-old tuxedo kitty was with us for nearly nine years. She loved the finer things in life: chasing crumpled paper balls, watching Bird TV (e.g. the backyard), and savoring gourmet gravy treats. Our little Sneak will always remain in our hearts.
Zeke, aka Professor Goof (Professor Emeritus of Advanced Goof Studies), 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 a rubber clown nose, and shyly ask for belly rubs. He left us far too soon (in late 2020), but he's immortalized in Gameroom, and we'll always remember our orange little-old-man boy.