We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Brigid Morrissey. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Brigid below.
Brigid, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I grew up creating in all kinds of ways, but I gravitated toward drawing. It was always in the background of my life, but rarely in the foreground. Becoming a published author and illustrator was a goal of mine since early childhood. My mom likes to joke about the time I told her that I wanted not only to pursue that, but I also wanted to play in the WNBA and be a veterinarian in the off season.
Well, I got close to the WNBA — I earned a basketball scholarship at Furman University. During most of my tenure I was occupied with training, playing, and socializing, but I fit some studying in too. I graduated with a BA in Studio Art and a concentration in Graphic Design, so I was able to scratch my creative itch, but my dream job of becoming an author and illustrator remained just that. As I entered the “real world” and got a “real job,” I shoved that dream to the dusty recesses of my mind and let them sit there for a while.
I opened The Root, which is a coworking space, with my dad in our historic downtown community in December of 2018 after navigating a series of jobs I knew weren’t the right fit. Through The Root, I was fortunate to meet several creative professionals doing really interesting things, and ended up starting a marketing company with a few of them. While I highly value the opportunities that opened up and the lessons I learned throughout my time with this company, we eventually reached a mutual decision to dissolve our company in order to pursue our personal passions.
Remember how I said that it had always been in the background? Well, even throughout my professional journey I was struck with various ideas or funny concepts for poems or childrens books enough that it would prompt me to at least write them down in a notebook. Then I would tell myself that I was “saving them for later” or that I’d “get to them eventually.” So when I found myself in this transitional period years later, I decided that if I kept telling myself that I’d “get to them eventually” that I might never take the chance or that it might be too late by the time I thought I was ready. There was no better time than right now to pursue writing and illustrating. So, I started.
I had been compiling my book for a month or so when I got a message from one of my teammates I played with in college. Unbeknownst to her that I was on this new path of illustrating, she said, “I’m writing a children’s book right now and I was wondering if you would illustrate it.”
Mind you, we had kept up a little bit with each other on social media, but we hadn’t spoken in about eight years.
I caught her up on my writing and illustrating journey and quickly agreed to draw the pictures for her book. She and I continued to pursue our own research on publishing options.
Flash forward a couple of months when she had completed the manuscript and decided to take a chance and pitch her idea to a publisher. The publisher loved the idea, and in that conversation my friend mentioned me, and that lead to me becoming an independent contractor for the publishing company. I went from committing to my friend’s book to taking a position as an illustrator for a publishing company! Oh, and do you know how my friend decided to call that publishing company? One of our former basketball coaches got published by that company.
Connections I had made a decade ago were coming back around full circle to help jumpstart my dream career, a career that I had wanted since childhood.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I grew up drawing and using my imagination in all kinds of ways, whether that be through make-believe in the woods in my backyard or writing stories. My mom has always been a reader, and so she set an example for me to expand my mind through books and to keep an open mind about learning through them. I remember reading Shel Silverstein as a child and loving his poetry books. I still read them as an adult and if it’s possible, I get even more enjoyment out of them now. His poems are relatable no matter where you are in life, and no matter your age. Depending on your maturity level and understanding, they hit differently and have a deeper meaning. My voice as a writer is very similar to his. No one should take themselves or their lives so seriously all the time and it is important to find the humor in it even amidst adverse circumstances. It is the toughest times and seasons in our lives that define us and mold us into who we are and I hope that my book, “The Bird That Walked North,” inspires laughter and learning moments for kids and adults. My hope is that this book reaches ears and audiences that I never would have been able to with just face-to-face and daily in-person interactions. I know that I was put on this earth to be a light for others and to be a connector, whether that is people to people, people to ideas, etc. and I think that this series is a way for me to live out that purpose.
I have grown up in a loving family, who has always encouraged me to dream big (and that happens a lot). The older I have gotten the more I have realized how rare it is to be in a supportive, genuine family environment with parents who love unconditionally. They are a huge source of inspiration. I have two older sisters, and they each have three kids, and I have written a poem about each of them. In this first book, I have written about the two youngest in each family. “Hungry Hazel” is about my niece, and we always joke about how much that kid loves to eat. Her mind is always on food and the next meal. She is usually the last one at the dinner table too. “Bo on the Go” is about my nephew Bowman, and he was learning how to walk at the time I wrote that poem. Those kids bring so much joy to my life, and they are tireless subjects for me to write about. It will be a nice legacy and keepsake for them as they get older and can be reminded of different stages in their life through these poems.
My writing process is different at different times. Often, I think of the punchline first, and then work backwards throughout the rest of the poem. Sometimes a phrase comes to mind, and it causes me to think of its origin or of using it as a play on words, or just as a means to explore the English language. I love wordplay and puns and so a lot of my poems incorporate them. Every now and then, though, I will draw something first, and then the words come based on what I’ve illustrated. Another way Shel Silverstein has inspired my work is by using an illustration to provide context to the poem. He could make his illustrations engaging from page to page, and with my book, the illustrations tie the whole book together.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
When I first began to dabble in the world of childrens books, I got connected to a woman who owns a publishing company and she quickly became a mentor of mine. After listening to all of my ideas and goals, she had a very polite way of telling me that I was all over the place. She asked me if I had a purpose statement for my life and then proceeded to explain that when I have that figured out, it made all, or most of, my decisions much easier, because they either aligned with my mission or not.
This past year I was able to meet with her again for coffee and share my statement: To maintain peace within and express it outwardly through loving action, holistic living, and creative spiritual gifts in such a way that it inspires others to do the same.
I was also able to convey to her how much her words back then resonated with me, and now I had the experience and accomplishments to prove it.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
As an owner of a coworking space, I understand the importance of simply providing the space for artists and creatives to come together and work. We should all have accessibility to resources — people, materials, knowledge, etc. — but there are often lots of barriers to entry. My goal is to open the door, and it’s up to them to walk through it. But beautiful things happen when we come together and support each other.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://brigidmorrissey.art, https://www.therootworkspace.com/
- Instagram: @brigid_preneur, @therootcowork
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100015867616197, https://www.facebook.com/TheRootCowork
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brigid-morrissey/, https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-root-a-coworking-space/
Image Credits
Ron West