Carl Deuker's Official Website

AVAILABLE NOW!
This page-turner of a sports story is so vivid and well told that I literally experienced physical tension as I watched this teenager becoming more and more trapped . . . Richie Partington, MLIS (Richie's Picks)

Carl Deuker, author of RUNNER and NIGHT HOOPS, focuses on football in this new book. His use of non-stop, play-by-play action, realistic teen frustrations, and personal demons make this a book even reluctant readers will be reluctant to
put down. 5 Stars Sally Kruger, Teens Read Too

A new paperback edition of ON THE DEVIL'S COURT will be available this summer from Little, Brown & Co. Look for it in your local bookstore. If it's not there, they can order it for you. It will also be available on-line from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

WORK IN PROGRESS
WORKING TITLE: FOURTH AND FOREVER
TENTATIVE CHAPTER ONE
TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK OF THE OPENING.

One
I'm going to be a famous reporter. One day you will see my name--S.R. True--on the front page of your daily newspaper, or in Time magazine. There’s a breakthrough story waiting for me somewhere; I know it. And since it’s out there, I’ll find it--no doubt about it. One hundred percent certain.
Ah, who am I kidding? There’s lots of doubt about it.
Tons of doubt. Nothing but doubt.
I want to be in New York; I want to be a student at Columbia University, but instead of being in college at the heart of the world, I'm stuck at Lincoln High School in boring Seattle, a city that barely has a pulse. Sure, I write for the school newspaper, but nobody here thinks of me as a writer. I'm a joke to my classmates. They don't think of me as S.R. True, journalist-to-be. I'm not even Stanley True, which is what my mother calls me, or Stan, which is what my father calls me. To everybody at Lincoln, I'm Mitch.
That doesn’t sound like such a bad nickname, until you hear how I got it. I’m five feet three and I weigh one eighty. Okay, one ninety. Okay, two hundred and two . . . three months ago. I’ve got skin the color of a sheet of paper and wispy blonde hair. I'm sort of a cross between a huge white fireplug and a small white whale. Girls don’t exactly chase me down the halls.
Three years ago, when I'd just started my freshman year at Lincoln High, all I wanted to do was stay in the shadows. But early in September Dann Bach, a football player with wiry brown hair and a voice the size of Texas, spotted me as I stood in the lunch line. Bach fancied himself the school funny man. “Hey, look,” he said to his friends, “it’s the Michelin Man.” His buddies roared as if it were the funniest joke they’d ever heard in their lives. Michelin Man! Michelin Man! they chanted.
For a few weeks after that, lots of kids called me Michelin Man. Then, one day, the name was shortened to Mitch Man, which got shortened to Mitch, which stuck. Now, most kids don't even know that my real name is Stan. Sometimes I forget my real name is Stan.
Last year Ms. Ahlstrom, my English teacher, kept me after class one day. “I heard why you’re nickname is Mitch,” she said, her blue eyes showing concern. “And I know how much it must hurt your feelings. But remember that Alexander Pope, one of the greatest writers of all time, was a dwarf with pock-marked skin and bad breath. Physical appearance is unimportant. You can be a great writer too.”
She was trying to be nice--but give me a break, lady. I admit I’m overweight, but I'm not a zitty dwarf with halitosis. Still, after school that day I hustled to Bartell’s and bought a large tube of Clearasil and a huge bottle of Listerine, and I use both products religiously. “Mitch” is bad enough; I sure don’t want to be “Stinky Mitch” or “Mitch the Zit.”



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LETTERS FROM READERS

Dear Mr. Deuker,

I wanted to start off by saying that your book 'Heart of a Champion' changed my life forever. I vividly recall first pulling it off the shelves of my Northwest Washington elementary school library in fifth grade. Of course my adoration of baseball lead me to pull it and then read it once, twice and then a third time within the school year. This was really something for me, as I had been a kid who usually craftily composed his book reports based on what it said on the back cover or the inside flaps of novels. Your book truly reignited my affinity for books and futhered my love for baseball. It has always been my favorite sport although I always hit in the lower third of the lineup and struck out a lot (at 6'4' I have a big strike zone) and I always felt, as I read your book, that I could relate on many levels with Seth. Even as I excelled at basketball and track my heart has always been with baseball.
I stumbled upon your website this evening as I was throwing together a brochure for one of my college literature classes I am taking at Western Washington University. I am making the brochure all about baseball literature so automatically I thought of 'Heart of a Champion.' I hope you don't mind, but I plan to create a book spotlight on 'Heart of a Champion' and an author spotlight on Carl Deuker. I was excited to learn you live in the Seattle area and even more excited to learn you are a Mariners fan! (When I saw that on your website I knew I had to e-mail you.) So I simply wanted to thank you for your work and encourage you by letting you know that your writing is doing great things in your readers' lives everywhere!

Thank you Mr. Deuker!
Sincerely, your biggest fan:
Joseph V.

P.S. I am very excited about the Mariners in 2008. I think they have a legitimate chance to make the playoffs! I hope you are as optimistic as I am.

Thank you, Nebraska readers, for choosing High Heat as your Golden Sower Award winner. Your generosity is greatly appreciated! CARL

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