I'm not a one-hit wonder, the second book sold!

Friday afternoon after I got back from my brother's law school graduation (see pic to the left, click to make big, congrats, Dan!), I got word from my agent that we'd officially reached a deal with MTV Books for my second book, BALLADS OF SUBURBIA! I'm very excited to be working with my fabulous editor Jen Heddle at MTV Books again, but mostly I just heaved a big sigh of relief when I found out she wanted the book. Maybe it's silly, but I kinda felt like the first book was a fluke. I've had multiple nightmares since finishing BALLADS and sending to my agent to send to Jen wherein Jen rips my writing to pieces and basically laughs at me. Even though writing has always been the thing I'm best at, I've always felt like my best may not be good enough.

BALLADS is also a very different book than IWBYJR. I think it's beautiful, but in a different way. Like IWBYJR is a Nirvana song with big catchy hooks and BALLADS is a Joy Division song, darker, moodier, and a little bit harder to interpret. I'm glad that Jen could appreciate them both and I hope that readers will, too.

It seems fitting that I sold the book around the time Dan graduated from law school. He and I both have two degrees from college now. And selling the second book is much like graduating from college a second time. You've done it before, so part of you expects you can do it again, but it's much harder this time (at least for me, the second book came a lot harder than the first. Jen says it needs editorial focus and it really does and I'm so glad it is her because I know she will ask the questions that will get the story right on track *finally*), and when it's done it's more of this feeling of relief almost than celebration. Again, at least for me. When I got my BA, I went out and got totally smashed to celebrate. Getting the MFA was a much quieter affair.

Anyway, enough of that comparison. Here is what you need to know about BALLADS.

The little one sentence summary of it:

After years of feeling like an outcast in her suburban town, sixteen year-old Kara McNaughton finds her place among a group of punks, skaters, and other misfits who hang out at a local park, but as the teens try to cope with bad relationships and broken homes, life spirals out of control.

Very hard to summarize, had to leave lots out like how the main life spiraling out of control thing is heroin addiction (see darker than IWBYJR, yes?), so you can read more about it, including an excerpt on my website here: http://stephaniekuehnert.com/backstage.html

I don't have an estimated release date yet, but will post it on my website as soon as I do and prolly blog about it, too.

So yay! That's my big news!

You have about nine more hours to have something of your own to celebrate, namely a signed copy of FRENEMIES by Alexa Young, so read the blog before this one and answer the song question to enter!!!