ABOUT
Jill writes about real life stuff for grown-ups and conjures fantasy worlds for children in the form of middle-grade and YA eco-adventure novels. She has been published in various nature anthologies, national magazines, and by leading conservation organizations. Jill lives on a gravel road in rural Vermont with one husband, two sons, and a pair hilarious canines.
PUBLICATIONS
Jill wrote a book for the Center for Whole Communities entitled Entering This Land: A History of Knoll Farm. During her freelance years, she published a collection of project profiles for the Vermont Land Trust and served as theater critic for Seven Days. Her work has also appeared in Popular Mechanics, Vermont Sports Magazine, American Nature Writing 2002, Northern Woodlands Magazine, Esquire, Parent Co., Wild Earth, Money Magazine, and on WAMC’s The Round Table. Jill was inspired to write a children’s book upon the birth of her eldest nephews, Gus and Ethan. The story has mushroomed into a MG environmental fantasy adventure trilogy featuring characters loosely modeled after each of her six nieces and nephews and her two sons. She is rewriting the book as a dovetailed narrative of its two main characters, which is a doozy of a task, but well worth it.
BACKGROUND
Jill graduated with a BA in Environmental Science from Middlebury College and earned a MA in Literature from the Bread Loaf School of English. She began her career in book publishing with The Lyons Press in New York City and then returned to the mountains to become an English teacher, writing tutor, and soccer coach at Vermont Academy. Interested in communications of all kinds, Jill worked in traffic and production at Vermont Public Radio, served as a Senior Communications Associate at the Orton Family Foundation, and became the first Communications Director at Aqua ViTea Kombucha. She was the Content and Brand Manager for Chelsea Green Publishing, and now works as core support faculty at CVU. Outside school, Jill is a freelance writer, editor, and yogini who loves books and wilderness and most of all her family.