Sarah Brennan Funny & Fabulous Blog

You’re never too young to be published!

How old do you have to be to be published? This is a question that I often hear from kids. Many of you would love to have your stories published, but you’d rather not wait for another twenty years!

So I’ve done a bit of research and – guess what? The youngest person to ever have a book published was …

FOUR YEARS OLD!!

Her name was Dorothy Straight. She was born in Washington DC (the capital of the United States of America) in 1958, and when she was just four and in pre-kindergarten, she wrote and illustrated a picture book called ” How the World Began” for her grandma. Her mum and dad thought it was good enough to be published…and it was! They sent it to Pantheon Books (a part of huge US publishers Random House)  who published it two years later in 1964.

And boys haven’t done too badly either!

The youngest published boy was Dennis Vollmer, born in Oklahoma in the United States in 1980, who wrote and illustrated a wonderful story about a stranded whale called “Joshua Disobeys” when he was just six years old, which was published by Landmark Editions in 1988.

At the other end of the scale, the oldest person who was ever published for the first time was Argentina Brunetti, an actress who was born in 1907 in Buenos Aires in Argentina (surprise, surprise!) and who had her first novel published at the grand old age of 98 just before she died in 2005!

Which all goes to prove that you’re never too young to be published, and you’re never too old either!

So get writing all of you – no excuses!! And you can start by entering my Laugh Out Loud Limerick Competition RIGHT NOW!

My new Laugh-Out-Loud Limerick competition starts TODAY!

If you’re a bit of a joker, or love playing with words and rhymes, or if you’ve ever laughed out loud at a silly limerick, this is the competition for you! Go to my Competition Page to find out what you have to do this month to win a signed copy of one of my books!

CONGRATULATIONS to the Winner of my Sizzling Summer Story Competition!

Congratulations to Li Yan Wa, winner of my Sizzling Summer Story competition! Yan Yan wrote a fantastic story about a REALLY weird alien encounter between two shape-altering aliens with two pretty normal human kids. Jelly-shaped Grandpas, cardboard boxes, soil samples and really annoying little brothers…it’s got the lot! So go to my Competition Page above to read Yan Yan’s story and enjoy!

WELCOME BACK!

It’s been a long hot summer and if you’re anything like me you had a fabulous holiday, but you’re good and ready to get your brain buzzing again!

So just to get things fizzing, there’s a Wicked new Word, a Brilliant new Book and an even more Awesome Author waiting for you on the pages above. So get off to a flying start this term and start reading!

An ENORMOUS new wicked word awaits you!

Quick – go to my Wicked Word page to find a really BIG new wicked word with really interesting and unusual origins! It’s HUGE, it’s MASSIVE, it’s STUPENDOUS!!!!!!

17 days to go…

Hello all you budding writers out there! How are your holidays going? Are you getting just a bit bored with all that relaxation? Just a bit twitched with all that nothing-to-do?? Just that tiny bit interested in getting the old brain cells working again???

Well, here’s the solution – get out your pen or pencil and a nice big block of paper, and write a funny or freaky or just plain fabulous story for my Sizzling Summer Story competition! Take a look at the Competition page to see the choice of three subjects – one of them is just bound to suit you and your own unique style. Then send it to me at sarah@auspicioustimes.com in good time for the end of this month when the competition closes. You never know, you might be a winner and get published on my blog! Go for it!!

Watch out! There’s a Tiger in the Loire Valley!

Bonjour mes amis! It’s Tarini the Tiger, just back from a terrific trip down the Loire Valley in France! Here’s my photo album featuring moi and beaucoup de castles – enjoy!

Here I am setting off from Paris on the train to Tours with my favourite French magazine! (Of course, I am a very literary tiger with advanced reading tastes!)

My favourite French car, called a “2cv ” which means “Deux chevaux” or “Two Horses“!

 Here I am helping my canine friend to guard the Royal Hunting Residence at Loches – in this famous castle, Joan of Arc persuaded the prince to go to Reims to be crowned King Charles VII of France!

Here I am with my friend the Medieval Knight, in his suit of armour. But I reckon I’m MUCH scarier!!

Here’s your favourite tiger in front of the famous Chateau at Chenonceau where the wicked Queen Catherine de Medicis spent her holidays plotting and planning – she was even scarier than Temujin!

The wonderful Chateau de Valencay – one of the great Emperor Napoleon’s favourite castles where he liked to show off how powerful he was to foreign princes! He held three Spanish princes hostage here, for five and a half years!

Here I am sitting in front of the fairytale castle of Chambord, which is said to have inspired the famous story of Sleeping Beauty – of course, I’m much more beautiful.

My famous self posing in front of the famous Loire River, overlooking the rooftops of Amboise, the seat of many a royal French king.

In front of Clos Luce, where Leonardo de Vinci lived his last three years and died in the arms of the French king Francois I. Here he invented many of his famous inventions and wrote many wise things and painted many of his famous paintings. He even made a giant mechanical lion which spilled Fleur de Lys out of its mouth to entertain the king at one of his grand parties!

At last – back to Paris on the train with my new friend the Spotty Leopard. My mum says he’s just a pencil case, but I don’t believe her!

And last but not least, here I am having a cuddle with my mum. Mum’s are the best!

Au Revoir and A Bientot! (Which means “Goodbye and see you later!” in French!)

 And don’t forget to write a story for Mum’s Sizzling Summer competition on the Competition page – you might win one of my mum’s great books!

Tarini on Tour!!

Namaste all you kids out there! I’m Tarini the Tiger, Temujin’s Indian cousin, who some of you have already met on my mum Sarah Brennan’s school tours! You can see I’m all packed, with my suitcase all ready to go with my mum and the family on holiday! Yippee! I’ll try to send you some photos of me in Europe with the odd landmark or two! In the meantime, my mum has a message for you all – keep on reading and writing and remember to enter your story into the Sizzling Summer Competition! Have fun!! R-A-A-R-R-R!!

See you later, alligators!

Well, my friends, it’s time for me to pack my bags and hop on a plane to fly home to Australia to see my mum and dad and sisters and brother! But fear not! I’ll be back with some great new pages in just over two weeks’ time! In the meantime, I hope you all have a WONDERFUL holiday! And I especially hope that you read some wonderful books and better yet, write me a wonderful entry in my Sizzling Summer Challenge Competition!

And if you’re not sure what to say when someone says “See you later alligator” …..

Try saying…”In a while, crocodile…”

This week my Awesome Author wrote my Brilliant Book!

If you’ve never heard of the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver then you’re in for a real treat this week! Take a look at my Brilliant Book page to learn about the first book in the famous series, then go to my Awesome Author page to find out all about the author! Then go to your library or bookshop and get yourself a copy – you won’t be able to put it down!