Sally Brenden

The library of my one room country school, though teensy, boasted glorious tales of a life beyond the reaches of my small central Minnesota farming township. Surely there was a world out there worth exploring.

My family lived in financial poverty only; we seven siblings lived larger than our surroundings, even papering the old outhouse with Wordsworth sonnets. You may have read about people like me. I did walk or ride my 20" Schwinn a mile and a half to school each day (weather permitting, and it is not true that hills are higher or the snow deeper on the trip home)and cut paper dolls out of the Sears and Roebuck catalog. I learned that you can ride pigs if you don’t have horses, never raise cucumbers to sell to pickle retailers thinking you will become rich, and that it was normal to eat eight meals a day.

I also learned and saw in my parents the Truth of a God who loved me and died for me and had planned an amazing role for me in His Cosmic Drama. I determined to become His actress and focus my life on an Academy Award performance.

I added some fancy education beyond my one room country school which allowed me the great privilege of serving the marginalized of society in my professional, volunteer and personal life. It has been my honor to serve at-risk teens, people in poverty, the dying, and mothers of children with disabilities.

God blessed me with both successes and failures; heartache, pain and beauty; and miraculous experiences and unbelievable opportunities. One quite amazing opportunity led to my becoming a playwright and lyricist. My first musical, Fishing Widows: The Reel Story, opened in 2010. Or maybe that doesn't surprise you, what with my putting on Christmas plays with my sixteen country school cronies half a century ago, or taking a year or so of piano lessons from a back woods piano teacher when I was six. (I am self taught on the flutaphone, kazoo and comb.)

Brenden Books are a Haven for Your Heart...With a Side of Whimsy. They are best read with your favorite cuppa coffee, tea or hot chocolate and at least one delectable confection. (This I also learned early on in life on the farm.)You may wish to have a supply of tissues. Tears are the language of the heart and I both write and read that language fluently. Laughing and chortling are great for your heart, too, so be prepared for full belly laughs as well.

And did I mention I wear hats?