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Ted Macaluso

Goodreads Author

Born

Brooklyn, NY, The United States

Website

http://www.tedmacaluso.com

Twitter

TedMacaluso

Genre

Children's, Young Adult, Science Fiction

Influences

Philip Pullman, Leigh Bardugo, Paolo Bacigalupii, Vernor Vinge, Veroni ...more

Member Since

February 2016

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Ted Macaluso writes adventure stories for children and adults. He is the author of Vincent, Theo and the Fox, a picture book adventure about Vincent van Gogh and growing up, which the Washington Post called, “…cool. Very cool.” His short stories have appeared in Stupefying Stories, Little Old Lady Comedy, Witcraft, Fabula Argentea, and The Washington City Paper. When not writing or reading, he loves hiking, travel and photography. Ted lives in Northern Virginia with his wife, tall mountains of coffee, and a frequ8ently miscHievous word zprocessor.

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Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Ted Macaluso To get my son to go on exercise walks with me I would tell him stories. They were simple action tales: Suddenly, a monster…Bam, a hero…Wham another mo…moreTo get my son to go on exercise walks with me I would tell him stories. They were simple action tales: Suddenly, a monster…Bam, a hero…Wham another monster. And then one day a real monster struck: Mark got very sick. He had a series of lung infections and several times a day had to sit still for twenty minutes breathing through a nebulizer. Not what an active 5 year old boy wants to do! Just before one of these episodes his grandmother was visiting and we had all gone to the National Gallery of Art to see an exhibit of van Gogh’s paintings. She bought the exhibit catalog, Van Gogh’s Van Goghs: Masterpieces from the Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam by Richard Kendall with contributions by John Leighton and Sjraar van Heugten. One afternoon when Mark was being nebulized, he asked me to tell a story. I did not have it in me. He pointed to the catalog, saying, “Read me the story.” I tried to explain, “It’s not a story.” Neither he nor Grandma would let me off easy. I had to “read” the catalog to him.

What to do? An art catalog is not a wham, bam action tale. I opened it at random and it showed Harvest at La Crau, with Montmajour in the Background (Arles, June, 1888). I thought to myself, “OK, Vincent has to be a boy to make this interesting…but what is he doing?” I surprised myself by saying, “One day, when he was a boy, Vincent van Gogh and his brother, Theo, were looking at the harvest when they saw a fox sneak into the cart.” That picture and that idea became the start of Vincent, Theo and the Fox. Vincent and Theo chased the fox through a bunch of van Gogh’s paintings until the nebulizer was done. At that point, the fox got away and the boys went home.

The tale kept Mark engaged but it was not really a story yet. When I decided to turn it into a real story I knew it needed more. I asked myself, “What do boys do?” The answer, of course, is that they grow up. And while they grow up they wonder what they will become. We all know that van Gogh became a painter, but he didn’t go there directly, trying a number of different jobs first. So as a boy in a story there is wonder and mystery when Vincent thinks about growing up. Somehow I came up with the idea that the fox was young too—he was also trying to grow up and find his way in the world. And that, I believe, is what makes Vincent, Theo and the Fox a delightful tale. We have two boys and a fox thinking about growing up and through their actions teaching each other about life. The writer, Susan Sontag, writes that “art is not only about something, it is something.” By this, she means that art isn’t like science or history, it doesn’t teach you facts you should know. Rather, literature gives readers an experience from which they learn and take their own lessons. I like to think that Vincent, Theo and the Fox achieves this: it does not teach about growing up, it lets readers learn about it.

Because the book's reproductions of van Gogh's paintings are beautiful and chase tales are exciting, readers don’t “get” what they are experiencing until it is over. But my hope is that the story stays with children and they learn while they process the experience of the story. Because the book gives a brief biography of van Gogh in an epilogue, children learn about van Gogh while processing the experience of the story. I think this really engages them in van Gogh’s art and gives the story more depth.

What do you think? I would love to read your comments!
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Ted Macaluso’s books

Average rating: 4.25 · 61 ratings · 28 reviews · 5 distinct works

	Vincent, Theo and the Fox: A mischievous adventure through the paintings of Vincent van Gogh by Ted Macaluso (Goodreads Author), Vincent van Gogh (illustrator) 4.44 avg rating — 41 ratings — published 2014 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Seeking Cézanne: a Children’s Mystery Inspired by Paul Cézanne and Other Artists 3.85 avg rating — 20 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Seeking Cézanne: A children's mystery inspired by Paul Cézanne and other artists 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Bridge Between 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Alcatraz Cubed 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Ted Macaluso's Blog

Two New Short Stories

Like all writers, I get a LOT of rejection letters. It’s par for the course. This week was really nice though, with two publications! My short piece, The Offs, won first place in The Pete Wood Challenge writing competition for November 2024 and was published by Stupefying Stories.

https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-offs-by-ted-macaluso.html

And another short story, Greeter Pa

Ted is Currently Reading

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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

by Susanna Clarke

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Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)

by Martha Wells (Goodreads Author)

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On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything

by Nate Silver

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Aug 26, 2024 07:06PM

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Ted’s Quotes

“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.”
― Vincent Van Gogh

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“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.”
― Vincent Van Gogh

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