Get out that papyrus and sharpen those quills!

It's time for the 201o Golden Sponge on a Stick Competition! If you are a student, fancy yourself the next Caroline Lawrence, Lindsey Davis or Stephen Saylor, and think that you can write a great story set in Ancient Rome, then get busy and get writing! Of course, you should probably read the rules first, so surf on over to the Roman Mysteries blog where you can get all the official details necessary to win that sought after sponge!!!

Golden Sponge Stick Competition 2009

The prestigious Golden Sponge Stick competition, inspired by the Caroline Lawrence Roman Mysteries series, is a fiction-writing contest for primary and secondary level students (with three age categories). Each student who enters writes a short story or a mystery/detective story/thriller of 1500 words or less, set in Rome or during Roman times, which displays some historical research or knowledge of Roman daily life in the story. Previously this competition was only open to students in the United Kingdom, where the Roman Mysteries novels were originally published, but this year the contest has been opened internationally. The winning entry will receive, of course, a golden sponge-stick!

Full details about this contest, as well as writing tips, are available at Flavia Gemina's (aka Caroline Lawrence) Roman Mysteries Blog. Get those pencils sharpened!

Roman Mysteries on BBC

Caroline Lawrence's Roman Mysteries series premiered on May 8th, 2007, in Great Britain. No word if or when it will be available in the United States, but in the meantime you can enjoy the Roman Mysteries Game, see a video trailer, find out about the characters and see an episode guide on the BBC website above. If you're in the UK, tune in to BBC1 on Thursdays at 4:30 pm.

Of course, you can always read Caroline's books while you wait. Start with Thieves of Ostia, the first book in the series. In this book, you'll be introduced to the main characters -- Flavia, Jonathan, Miram, Nubia and Lupus -- as they seek to solve the mysterious deaths of dogs in their neighborhood. Followup titles include Secrets of Vesuvius, Pirates of Pompeii, Assassins of Rome and 12 more titles.

Caroline Lawrence maintains an author's website where interested readers can read her bio, check out her blog, download and print nifty bookplates, and read the newscroll to find out what's coming up next for Flavia and her author.

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