Marco Island is a slow-paced barrier island with a rich archeological legacy left behind by the Calusa long ago. But the specter of the vanished natives isn’t what draws writer Jill Baguchinsky to themes of paleontology and paranormal activities, or teenage angst, set against the backdrop of the island, where she moved as an infant.
Dorothy Edwards/Naples Daily New
Jill Baguchinsky in her Marco Island home on Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018. Baguchinsky's second book “Mammoth” is publishing Nov. 6.
The lifelong islander, 39, will be hitting the road soon to promote her second young adult novel, “Mammoth” (Turner Publishing Company), set to launch November 6. Here’s how she describes the girl-empowering plot: “It’s the story of a teenaged, plus-size fashion blogger and paleontology geek who lands an internship at an Ice Age dig site. To stand out in the field, she has to find — to dig up — her true awesomeness.”
The main character, Natalie, 16, is a rising junior with a serious self-esteem deficit who has created what Jill calls “her armor” as a defense against bullies. “She created a persona: vintage clothes, dark eyeliner and heavy lipstick. That sort of thing doesn’t work well when you’re digging in the dirt or prospecting for fossils, so she has to be herself and find her true confidence,” Jill says. It also celebrates females working in STEM fields as Natalie — from a fictional Florida town that local readers might recognize as Naples — heads to a Texas dig site based on Waco Mammoth National Monument. It explores body positivity, bullying and finding passion and integrity — along with light romance.
This follows her “Spookygirl: Paranormal Investigator,” published by Dutton in 2012 after Jill beat out 10,000 other contenders in a competition run by Amazon and Penguin for writers unable to break into the publishing world. “Spookygirl” — about a Marco teen who can see ghosts and is grappling with her mother’s mysterious death — earned the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award in Young Adult Fiction and a publishing contract.
Her love of reading led Jill to become a writer.
“My mother jokes, even at the dinner table, I would eat with one hand and have a book in the other, because I was constantly reading,” she says with a laugh.
She earned a degree in liberal arts from Florida Gulf Coast University, where she took a broad range of history and anthropology, psychology, literature and writing courses.
“I tried to take things that would be helpful when I was writing books,” she says.
The self-proclaimed homebody likes to keep her hands busy on artistic projects. She knits, embroiders, hand quilts, sews and embraces DIY projects — “whatever grabs my attention. It’s just the creative process, like writing.”
Jill is a freelance writer and graphic designer who assists with websites, blogging and marketing. For 11 years, she had her own Etsy store, called Mint Conspiracy. She sold little plush monsters, which she describes as “squeeful,” that she hand-stitched herself, inspired by her family’s toy store, Teddy & Friends.
“After years of hand sewing thousands, I was literally burned out. It’s fun to make the first monster, but after 2,000, it gets a little old,” she says.
This summer, she was diligently creating keychains to pass out at book-signing and speaking engagements. They feature metal charms that represent elements of paleontology: a shovel, a small hand brush and a bone. Paleontology is in her bones.
“I was just always one of those kids who was super into dinosaurs,” she says.“I never grew out of that.”