Above: Julianna Baggott: novelist, short story writer, poet, professor, at her home in Newark. Photo by Joe Hoddinott.
By Bob Yearick
Proving once more that the iconic Thomas Wolfe novel had it all wrong, bestselling author Julianna Baggott has indeed gone home again — to Newark, where she was born and grew up. Baggott and her husband, David Scott, moved there from another university town — Amherst, Mass. — five years ago, and they are now comfortably ensconced at the epicenter of a fascinating and endlessly creative family whose members, to varying degrees, have managed to turn art into commercial success.
Baggott, a novelist, short story writer, poet, professor, and — most importantly, mother of four — has sold more than 20 books, including two New York Times Notable Books of the Year, published by, among others, Simon & Schuster, Random House, HarperCollins, and Hachette, under her own name as well as pen names.
One of her most recent projects is “The Hider,” a short story collaboration with her oldest son, Finneas Scott, which has been acquired by Universal Pictures in connection with Oscar-winning Oppenheimer star Robert Downey Jr. Which Brings Me to You, a book she co-wrote with Steve Almond, was a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2006 and is now a feature film streaming on Hulu.
All told, her production company, Mildred’s Moving Picture Show (MMPS), with a focus on high-concept short stories, has more than 20 projects in development with the likes of Disney+, Netflix, Amblin (Steven Spielberg is chairman), MGM and Ryan Reynolds’ company, Maximum Effort. (Sorry, Baggott has no Hollywood insider stories. “I really don’t meet actors,” she says. “But I deal with really brilliant, incredibly well-read producers who are great at what they do. I’m lucky.”)
Talent and hard work, not luck, have propelled her ascension in the literary world. After graduating from St. Mark’s High School, she earned a degree in creative writing and French from Loyola University Maryland in 1991, and followed that with a Master of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in ’94. She fell in love early with the short story form, and her first published work appeared in Farmer’s Market, a western literary journal, while she was in grad school.
Freelancing Out of Poverty
Soon after receiving her MFA she met Scott, who is a poet, and they were married. An artist’s grant from Delaware enabled them to move to Newark (the first time), where they agreed that they wanted to have children while they both continued to write. After living at what she has described as “below poverty level,” they managed to transform themselves into successful freelancers.
Julianna Baggott (second from right) and most of her creative crew. From left, sons Finneas and Theo Scott, husband David Scott, and daughter Othilia Scott. Oldest daughter Phoebe Scott is a sculptor who lives in Indiana. Photo by Joe Hoddinott.
They often collaborated, and Baggott says, “Dave became a hardcore freelancer,” writing many pieces for The News Journal, Delaware Today, and Out & About as well as doing a stint as editor of the Newark Post.
Baggott’s career was launched in 1999, at the age of 29, with the publication of her first novel, Girl Talk. It became a national bestseller and was quickly followed by Boston Globe bestseller The Miss America Family, and then Boston Herald Book Club selection The Madam, a historical novel based on the life of her grandmother.
While she has co-authored with others several times, perhaps her most enjoyable collaboration was with her husband for her Boston Red Sox novel, The Prince of Fenway Park, published by HarperCollins in 2009. Scott, a New Hampshire native and die-hard Red Sox fan, enthusiastically embraced his role as researcher, going to Fenway and studying the Green Monster, the outfield grass, the scoreboard, and everything else about the storied ball yard, and Baggott wrote the book.
Pandemic Re-Focus
A young adult novel, Prince represents just one of the many genres Baggott has mastered. She has written science fiction, comedy, fantasy, thrillers, even horror. The pandemic helped her understand how to focus this impressive versatility into successful commerce.
“Production [on movies, TV, etc.] stopped during COVID,” she says, “but creative development continued, and things I published were being optioned. So I thought, why not try to write short stories with an eye toward high concept?”
She had started her career determined to concentrate on short fiction, she explains, “but writing novels was a way to make money and still do the thing I loved.” Thus, during the shutdown, “I got to go back to my roots. Once I did that, things started to open up. The industry is more open to adapting the short story.”
Creative Family
All of the Baggott-Scott brood have inherited creative genes. Finneas, for instance, in addition to “The Hider,’” had previously collaborated with his mother on the short story “Except You,” which was sold to Fox Entertainment Studios for development as a one-hour drama. Besides being a writer, Finneas, 27, is head of development for MMPS. “He went to film school and lived in L.A. for a while, so he has a real understanding of cinematic history,” Baggott says.
Her oldest child, Phoebe Scott, 29, is a sculptor who lives in rural Indiana. Son Theo, 24, has channeled his creative talents into social media with his popular TikTok and Instagram posts under the indelicate name Theo Kicks Balls. The comedic soccer videos have attracted more than 100,000 followers, enabling him to make a living doing something he loves, much like the rest of the family.
Baggott’s youngest, 17-year-old Othilia, is still in high school and has shown interest in both fashion and comedy, according to her mother.
Acting, Painting, Piano, Professor
Baggott herself is the youngest of four in a family that also is heavily into the arts, or at least the women are. Her oldest sister, Kate, teaches acting at New York University. Another sister, Melanie, is a painter in Arizona. Her mother is a piano teacher. Her father, who retired from the DuPont Legal Department years ago, “loved the arts and danced every day of his life,” Baggott says. Her brother, Bill, is a Boston technology executive who, she says, played a mean saxophone in his youth.
As if her other enterprises didn’t keep her busy enough, Baggott is also an associate professor at Florida State University, teaching screenwriting. She has taught at the Tallahassee school since 2004, and the family lived in Florida for a few years before moving to Massachusetts. Most of her classes are conducted via Zoom, although she does travel to Florida occasionally. She teaches adaptation, pitching, and other aspects of screenwriting to small classes of “smart, fabulous” students, and she thoroughly enjoys it.
Baggot is the author of more than 20 books, while her production company has more than 20 projects in development.
“My creative process is so entwined with motherhood and with teaching that many of my ideas come up through teaching and parenting,” she says. “And when I’m teaching something and I feel passionate about it, it’s generally something I need to be telling myself about my own work.”
“Teaching is a calling,” she adds, “just as writing is, and it keeps me very muscular and fit in terms of craft.”
Because of their entrepreneurial lifestyle, Baggott and Scott could live anywhere, but she wanted to be near her parents and they had tired of the winters in Massachusetts and the politics in Florida.
Now thoroughly settled back in Newark, they manage to occasionally dine out, despite their jam-packed schedules. Among their favorites are a couple of Main Street eateries — Café Gelato, owned by Ryan German, and Sasha Aber’s Homegrown Café.
“Ryan and Sasha are fellow entrepreneurs, and they’ve done it for as long as I have, so I feel a kindred spirit with them,” says Baggott.
You can keep up on the latest intellectual properties created by Team Baggott-Scott and Mildred’s Moving Picture Show by going to the website,
juliannabaggot.com, and clicking on the What’s New bar. Just don’t expect any stories about Ryan Reynolds or Robert Downey Jr.
