YA Author Brigid Kemmerer

Brigid Kemmerer was born in Omaha, Nebraska, thought her parents quickly moved her all over the United States, from the desert in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to the lakeside in Cleveland, Ohio, and several stops in between, eventually settling near Annapolis,  Maryland. 
Brigid started writing in high school, and her first real “novel” was about four vampire brothers causing a ruckus in the suburbs. Those four brothers are the same boys living in the pages of The Elemental Series, so Brigid likes to say she’s had four teenage boys taking up space in her head for the last seventeen years. (Though sometimes that just makes her sound nuts.)
Brigid writes anywhere she can find a place to sit down (and she’s embarrassed to say a great many pages of The Elemental Series were written while sitting on the floor in the basement of a hotel while she was attending a writer’s conference).
Most writers enjoy peace and quiet while writing, but Brigid prefers pandemonium. A good thing, considering she has three boys in the house, ranging in age from an infant to a teenager.
While writing STORM, it’s ironic to note that Brigid’s personal life was plagued by water problems: her basement flooded three times, her roof leaked, her kitchen faucet broke causing the cabinet underneath to be destroyed by water, the wall in her son’s room had to be torn down because water had crept into the wall, and her bedroom wall recently developed a minor leak. Considering SPARK, book 2 in the series, is about the brother who controls fire, Brigid is currently making sure all of the smoke detectors in her house have batteries. Brigid loves hearing from people, and she probably won’t refer to herself in the third person like this if you actually correspond with her.  She has a smartphone surgically attached to her person nearby at all times, and email is the best way to reach her,  Her email address is [email protected]

You can find Brigid Kemmerer at her website, Twitter, and Facebook.


We were able to entice Brigid from her busy schedule to give us a glimpse into her writer's life:


WPMP: What influenced you to become an Author?

BK: I’ve been writing as long as I can remember. I love hearing stories, so I naturally love telling them, too. My father used to say I have a “Social Worker Complex,” because people always want to tell me their life stories. I don’t mind at all – I love hearing where people come from. Who knows – maybe all those real stories will make it into one of my books one day!

WPMP: Where do you typically write?

BK: If the IRS asks, I write in my home office – and it’s true that I do a fair amount of my writing there. But I’m a mother with a full time (non-writing) job, and I’ll get a few words down on paper anywhere I can. I have a small MacBook, and it’s always in my purse.

WPMP: Do you listen to music while writing?

BK: Yes, always. I have very eclectic tastes, but I can’t listen to anything instrumental when I write.

WPMP: If you could spend unlimited money in a store - what store would it be and what would you buy?

BK: Target. I’d buy out the whole place.

WPMP: How long did it take to have your first book published?

BK: It takes forever, and it’s worth every second. Every. Single. Second. At 19, I landed an agent for my first novel, which was about four vampire brothers living in the suburbs. That novel never sold, and that agent and I parted ways when I got busy with work and school. When I was in my late 20s, I started taking writing seriously again. I rewrote the book about the four vampire brothers, got a critique partner, and started to query my novel. I did it the traditional way: query after query after query. I didn’t know anyone in publishing. This was in 2007 – and I didn’t land representation.

I went back to the drawing board and write a new book. Again, query after query. I landed an agent in the fall of 2008

That book didn’t sell.

Again, back to the drawing board. I wrote a new novel, STORM: Book 1 of The Elemental Series, which sold in February 2011. Writing is not a get rich quick scheme. Anyone who says differently is selling something. 

WPMP: What is your favorite dessert?

BK: I’m not a sweets person. I’d knock someone down for a bucket of popcorn, however.

WPMP: What authors inspire you?

BK: Wow! Lots of them. Charlaine Harris. Melissa Marr. Veronica Rossi. Stephanie Perkins. Simone Elkeles. I could go on and on.

WPMP: Where do you get the inspiration for your plots/characters?

BK: I make it all up. I don’t base any of my characters on real people.

WPMP: If your life had a theme song, what would it be?

BK: What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger) by Kelly Clarkson

WPMP: If you could control any element, which would it be & why?

BK: This is such a hard question! I love to swim, so water would be amazing. But fire is so powerful. And earth has such a connection to everything—just like air. Can I say I’d like to have them all?

Thanks so much to Brigid for her great interview!
Leave her a comment to make her feel welcome!