Gene Kemp was born in Wiggington, Staffordshire in 1926 grew up near Tamworth, Staffordshire, and went to Exeter University. She became a teacher and taught at St Sidwell's School in Exeter in the 1970s.

From 1972 she wrote stories for young writers about a pig named Tamworth, named after the town she grew up in.

Her best known book was The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler which was published by Faber's Children's Books in 1977. This book, set in the fictional Cricklepit School, charts the pleasures and pains of friendship and growing up. There are several Cricklepit books including Snaggletooth's Mystery, an alternative history of the school, and Gowie Corby Plays Chicken, a book set a year after The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler, referencing Tyke in several chapters.

She has also written ghost and fantasy stories as well as realistic fiction like Seriously Weird which is told from the perspective of the sister of a young man with Asperger syndrome.

She won the Carnegie Medal and the Children's Rights Other Award for Tyke Tiler, as well as being shortlisted for the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize four times, in 1981 for The Clock Tower Ghost, 1985 for Charlie Lewis Plays for Time, 1986 for Juniper and 1990 for Just Ferret. She has also turned her work into plays, the most successful and well-known of which is Charlie Lewis Plays for Time, another Cricklepit story.

Gene Kemp was awarded an Honourary MA from Exeter University in 1984.

She now lives in Exeter and has 3 children and 3 grand-children.

Children's Rights Workshop Other Award 1977 for The Turbulent Term of Tyke TilerCarneigie Medal 1978 for The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler

The Cricklepit series

• The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler (1977)
• Gowie Corby Plays Chicken (1981)
• Charlie Lewis Plays for Time (1984)
• Just Ferret (1990)
• Zowey Corby's Story (1995)
• Zowey Corby and the Black Cat Tunnel (1996)
• Snaggletooth's Mystery (2002)

Other books

• Dog Days and Cat Naps (1980)
• The Clock Tower Ghost (1981)
• Jason Bodger and the Priory Ghost (1985)
• Juniper (1986)
• Mr Magus is Waiting for You (1986)
• I Can't Stand Losing (1987)
• The Well (1988)
• No Place Like (1989)
• Seriously Weird (2003)
• The Haunted Piccolo (2004)
• Nothing Scares Me (2006)
• Ducks and Dragons (ed.)
• The Puffin Book of Ghosts and Ghouls (ed.)