​Brenton Cullen is a Queensland writer, bookseller and passionate advocate for children’s literature. He writes stories from the heart for all ages, with a particular love for picture books and middle-grade fiction.

Brenton wrote his first book, The Dingo with No Teeth, at the age of six, collecting wool, bark and leaves to make the collage illustrations. Inspired by a love of Jeannie Baker’s books, this early experiment sparked a lifelong desire to be an author. By the age of nine, Brenton was submitting manuscripts to publishers.

From the age of eleven, Brenton published short stories, articles and columns in anthologies and magazines. From fourteen to sixteen he wrote a weekly entertainment column for a local newspaper.
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He has written articles, interviewed authors and reviewed children’s books for Good Reading, CBCA Reading Time, Magpies: Talking About Books for Children and Books + Publishing.

Brenton is the recipient of the 2023 May Gibbs Children’s Literature Trust’s Ian Wilson Memorial Fellowship and the winner of the 2024 Just Write for Kids Pitch It! Competition (Middle-Grade).

He lives between the bush and the beach, with his partner, a quartet of fish named The Supremes, eight house plants, and an ever-growing picture book collection.

When not writing, Brenton is walking, going to arthouse cinemas, watching sitcoms or losing track of time in second-hand bookshops.

Visit him online at brentoncullen.com and on Instagram @brenton_cullen

Articles & Interviews ​

Living Arts Canberra - Radio Interview

12 Curly Questions

Paperbark Words with Joy Lawn

​​The Author Sit-Down Blog

Good Reading Kids Online

Gympie Today
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Just Write for Kids

Good Reading Magazine

Magpies: Talking about Books for Children
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Australian Institute of Intergenerational Practice 

Kids Book Review

 Story Links
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Gympie Living Magazine 

​South Burnett Online

Not the Plot Podcast ​
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Bringing Community Back Together Podcast 

FAQs
- Frequently Asked Questions -

This is my favourite YA novel

I have loved The Worst Witch series since I was eight years old

Milly-Molly-Mandy is a special book from my childhood

Where were you born?
I was born in Gympie, Queensland. We lived in a little house on a small property with lots of fences, yards, cows and horses. Across the road was a duck pond. Just up the hill lived my grandparents and down the road lived my other grandparents. When I was nine, we moved to Kingaroy, a few hours away. So, I think of Gympie and Kingaroy as my two home towns! 


What was the first story you ever wrote? 
I was six, and it was called The Dingo With No Teeth. I wanted to be Jeannie Baker so I wrote the story on card stapled together and collected bark and leaves and cotton wool to make 'collage' illustrations. 


What are your favourite books?
I love biographies of authors, non-fiction books about historical events, and adult murder mysteries by writers such as Robert Thorogood, Amanda Hampson, Ruth Ware, Agatha Christie and Lorna Barrett.

As a kid, I loved The Worst Witch, Milly-Molly-Mandy, the Hannah series by Libby Gleeson, The Shadow Thief, Moving Molly, Whispering to Witches, The Apartment Book, Thunderwith, The Famous Five, Harry Potter, Bailey School Kids, The Magic Faraway Tree, The Baby-Sitters Club (I'm a Mallory), Beatrix Potter stories, and lots of others - I read anything and everything! 


Who are your favourite authors?
I love Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Wendy Orr, Libby Gleeson, Libby Hathorn, Jackie French, Dianne Bates, Bill Condon, Ann M. Martin, Margaret Wild, Peter Carnavas, Sally Odgers, Emily Rodda, Judy Blume, Corinne Fenton, Kate Gordon, and about a hundred more!  


Who are your favourite illustrators?
Ann James, Jeannie Baker, Lorena Carrington, Beatrice Alemagna, Clare McFadden, Shirley Hughes, Noela Young, Rod Clement, Craig Smith, Max Hamilton, Tricia Tusa,  Andrew McLean, Karen Blair, Tom Jellett, Cheryl Orsini, Andrew Joyner, Patricia Mullins, Judy Watson, Danny Snell, Tamlyn Teow, and many more!
                                     
Do you like writing a particular type of story more than any other?
I love switching between stories for different age groups and lengths and genres. If I just wrote a long novel for middle-grade readers, I would rather write a shorter picture book text. If I just wrote a few children's books in a row, I might switch to work on an idea for an adult novel. I love writing all of it - but I think, deep down, picture books have my heart. 


What is your writing process?
I collect ideas, let them rest, then write a lot in yellow notebooks until the story is ready.
Sometimes I get an idea and instantly start writing, and it simply flows. Other times, I have an idea that sits in my 'Ideas Notebooks' for months or years, and then it might one day suddenly tell me it is 'ready' -  it can be good to let ideas percolate at the back of your mind.

Now, I am trying to be structured and intentional with what I write, and the order of which stories I write. It can be hard to choose what project to write next when I have so many ideas in my head, or in my Ideas Notebook. I try and pick the story that speaks to me the most, the one that jumps up and down and demands to be written, the one I think I will enjoy working on the most at that specific point in time, the one where I think 'I simply must write this right now!'.

For each book, I begin a new yellow notebook. On the cover, I write the title of the story and inside, I scribble ideas and character notes and draw maps or sketches and jot down random pieces of dialogue: basically any notes to do with the story. It is like I am 'thinking out loud' as I write scrawly notes to myself in this notebook. The notebook for each new book helps me build up the world of that story, until I am ready to begin the actual writing. 

When I am feeling ready to begin writing the story, I keep the corresponding yellow notebook beside me and I start putting words onto the page - on the computer but also sometimes by hand on yellow-lined paper (maybe yellow inspires me somehow). If I work consistently while writing a first draft, I can get five hundred words to fifteen hundred words a day.

It takes a couple months to write the first draft. I then set aside stories for a while, even picture books which are short, to let them rest and breathe. I have a stack of drafts in different stages beside me now. Which one will whisper to me next, I wonder...?

Do you have a favourite animal? Mine is the gorilla. I would quite like to write a story about a gorilla, one day.

A cover illustration by Ann James. Ann is my favourite illustrator of all time.

This is a mystery tv show about a writer, from the 1980s and 1990s. 'Murder, She Wrote' is my all-time favourite show!

Every time I have an idea for a book, I start scribbling the notes in a yellow notebook like this one.

FAVOURITES & FACTS
Favourite Animal?
Gorilla. 
Favorite Cartoon Character?
Scooby-Doo. 
Favourite Chocolate?
Cherry Ripe.
Favourite Place?
A library, bookstore or rainforest. 
Favourite TV Show?
Murder She Wrote, Friends, The Golden Girls, ​Superstore 
Favourite Movies?
La La Land, You've Got Mail, Harry Potter, Mrs Doubtfire, The Devil Wears Prada, and many more! 
Favourite Disney movie?
Basil the Great Mouse Detective, Sleeping Beauty and Up! (*cries*) 
Favourite colour?
Green!
Favourite food?
Ooh. Tough question. Sushi, sea-salt Turkish bread, chicken schnitzel and gravy, and chocolate. 
Summer or winter?
Winter. 
Bookmark or dog-eared page?
Bookmark (I'm not a monster). 
Morning bird or night owl?
Night owl! 
Cats or dogs?
Dogs. 
Beach or bush?
Bush.
Country or city?
​The country. 

Favourite Picture Books?
Tanglewood by Margaret Wild and Vivienne Goodman
The Toymaker and the Bird by Pamela Allen
Old Pig by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks
Window by Jeannie Baker
Arabella by Wendy Orr and Kim Gamble
Jessica Joan by Wendy Orr and Ann James
Book of Hours by Clare McFadden
Boots by Elizabeth Pulsford and Krista Brennan 
Wombat Divine by Mem Fox and Kerry Argent
I'm Sticking With You by Smriti Halls and Steve Small
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Favourite Junior Fiction Books?
So Who Needs Lotto? by Libby Hathorn and Simon Kneebone
Dear Writer by Libby Gleeson and David Cox
Skippy Blackfeet by Rebecca Fraser and Jennifer Horn
Ark in the Park by Wendy Orr and Kerry Millard
Hannah and the Tomorrow Room by Libby Gleeson and Ann James 
Emily's Fortune by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor 

Favourite Middle Grade Books?
The Elephant by Peter Carnavas
Leaving it to You by Wendy Orr
To the Moon and Back by Dianne Bates
The Other Shadow by Tania Ingram  
Hey Phantom Singlet by Simon French  
The Key to Rondo by Emily Rodda  
Teen Power Inc series by Emily Rodda
The Secret Beach by Jackie French​​

Favourite Books for Teenagers?
No Worries by Bill Condon
Flip by Rebecca Fraser
Valley Under the Rock by Libby Hathorn
Thunderwith by Libby Hathorn
The Ghost's Child by Sonya Hartnett
Peter by Kate Walker
Missing You, Love Sarah by Jackie French 
Two Weeks with the Queen by Morris Gleitzman 

Favourite Books for Adults?
Of a Boy by Sonya Hartnett
The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Becoming Mrs Mulberry by Jackie French 
Murder is Binding by Lorna Barrett
The Last Library by Freya Sampson  

Favourite Non-Fiction Books?
The Author & Illustrator Scrapbook (Vol 1 and 2) edited by Omnibus Books
Agatha Christie: A Biography by Janet Morgan
Writing Hannah: On Writing for Children by Libby Gleeson
Hope in the Mail by Wendelin Van Draanen
Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak