Today we’d like to introduce you to Brooke Archer.
Hi Brooke, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I started writing when I was twelve or thirteen, and back then, it was short stories that I wrote in the notes section of my phone. I’d spend hours curled up in bed typing away. Eventually, I moved on to longer stories, and a real laptop. I’ve always written Young Adult stories, and though I wondered if I might veer out of that genre as I myself grew up, I find I still gravitate toward it at 27. There’s something about Young Adult novels, the hope and coming-of-age aspect, that I still really love.
I always felt a bit embarrassed about my writing, and didn’t share it with many people. Not even my family really understood how invested I was in it as a teenager; while they didn’t outright question why I spent hours every evening tapping away on my laptop, I imagine they were a bit confused. It wasn’t until I was sixteen and I entered the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards (a nationwide competition for writers, artists, any creative outlet you can think of for teenagers) that I realized how badly I wanted to pursue writing. I entered the competition upon urging from a friend, and I spent five dollars on the admission fee to enter the first novel I ever wrote for consideration. A bit later, I learned I’d received an award at the regional level. And a bit after that, I found out I’d also won at the national level. Awardees were invited to New York City for a ceremony at Carnegie Hall. So, my big ‘this is what I want to do with my life’ conversation with my parents included a request to fly to NYC to get an award for a competition they didn’t even know I’d entered.
After that, I knew that while it might not be a traditional path, or one with any certainty, it was the only road for me to go down. I studied Creative Writing at Chapman University in Orange California, but had to move back to San Diego during 2020. All the while, I was working on my second novel (in my head, my first ‘real’ novel) and seeking representation from a literary agent. I worked during the day at a doggy daycare, and wrote at night. I was offered representation by a literary agent, signed, and a few months later, found out my debut novel, and a second novel, were going to be published by an imprint of Penguin Random House. Now, I’m a few weeks out from that second novel’s release, and am working on a third book!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As a child of divorce, with a father in the military, the road has always been rocky. While I’ve been lucky to have supportive and loving parents, there was a lot of moving around involved, and I spent a lot of time separated from my dad due to his job. I’ve dealt with depression and anxiety since I was young, but when I was fifteen, I was diagnosed with an eating disorder, and had to leave school for a period to receive treatment for it. For a while, it felt like I disappeared, and all that existed was the fight to regain that sense of who I was beyond my struggles. A few weeks after being discharged from treatment, I moved out to California to live with my dad, who had just been stationed here. It was a fresh start, a place where no one knew me as the girl who vanished from school or who sometimes cried at the dinner table. I got to relearn who I was, and rediscover my passions. And while those struggles didn’t disappear, and I still suffer from pretty severe anxiety, all of those experiences gave me a perseverance (or a stubbornness, depending on what you can to call it) that have only served me on the writing path. Publishing is not an easy industry, and requires a lot of patience, and resilience. Growing up the way I did, dealing with what I did, gave me a thick skin that has only helped me on this journey.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m an author of Young Adult novels. My first novel, Hearts Still Beating, is a YA zombie apocalypse romance that follows two girls who reunite a few years into the apocalypse, after a treatment has been discovered for those infected with the virus that ended the world. The story takes place in San Diego. My second novel, A Song In The Dark, is a YA paranormal romance that follows a teenage girl who moves to her mother’s hometown after a tragic car accident, and finds herself in the center of a decades-old mystery involving missing kids and a trio of ghosts haunting her home.
As someone who has inhaled books since I was young, and was known for pretending to be sick on school days so I could stay home and read, it has been so surreal to have my own books on the shelves I perused as a kid. And not only to be on those shelves, but to be published with a publishing house I have dreamed of working with since I was a kid. To have two books published alongside so many prestigious authors, at the age of 27, still doesn’t feel real, and while I sometimes struggle to give myself credit, even I have to admit how cool that is. I think the teenage version of me would be really proud to see how far she’s come.
How do you think about happiness?
It sounds cliche, but I’ve always been a huge dog person, and getting to work with dogs in my day job makes me happy. Life can be stressful and painful, but getting to go into work and hang out with such innocent creatures makes it easy to let the hard things slip away, if only for a little bit. It simplifies a complicated existence. So, while being a writer has always been my dream, I don’t mind having to get up early and go into work most days, as at least I have some wagging tails there to greet me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2290693/brooke-archer/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/broookearcher/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PenguinRandomHouse
Image Credits
Headshot Photographer: Kel Casey Photography
