By Emma Muhleman
Stephanie Kuehnert
Oak Park native Stephanie Kuehnert’s third book, Pieces of a Girl is a memoir about the messiness of growing up, surviving substance and relationship abuse, and picking up the pieces and making yourself whole again after trauma. Drenched in 90s nostalgia and told in a variety of narrative styles and mixed media elements, the content has a wide range of appeal for the unflinchingly honest way girlhood is portrayed.
With such a vulnerable piece of work where Kuehnert bears all the pieces of her soul, she says that due to the amount of time she’s spent working on the book and her healing journey, she is prepared for her story to be put into the hands of the public. “I proposed the book ten years ago. I’m more prepared than I think I would have been if the book had been released when I was first envisioning it.”
She credits her editors for helping her emotionally tackle the writing process. “I remember having moments, specifically around the abuse that I talk about in the book, and kind of going back to that place of feeling like my voice doesn’t matter. Am I even allowed to talk about this? I just remember my editor always saying, ‘Your voice matters, and this story matters.’ Having that encouragement meant a lot.”
Kuehnert got her start writing her own story by creating hyper-personal zines in high school. She later began writing for Rookie Magazine, where she was brought on to write about real teenage experience and personal essays. The magazine was an online publication aimed at teenage girls that ran from 2010-2018. Inspired by Sassy Magazine from the 90s, Rookie offered advice for teen girls on growing up, fashion and beauty, and feminism. Tavi Gevinson, the creator and editor of the magazine, is also from Oak Park and went to the same high school as Kuehnert. “It was such an organic experience,” she said about being added to the staff. “It was all of these different artists and writers coming together to make something. I remember Tavi saying, ‘We’re going to have to pay people in candy and mixtapes.’”
She says making zines and working for Rookie is how the mixed media elements of the book came to be. The book included scans of journal pages and mixtapes, pictures of Kuehnert throughout her life, and comics done by Suzy Exposito. “Part of my whole nature of having this idea of writing my story since I was a little girl– sometimes you could call it hoarding with how much stuff I kept.” Kuehnert laughed. “I have this big tupperware in my attic that has memorabilia from high school. I kept all of my journals, so it just felt natural for me. It felt like this is the way it had to be.”
In different moments of the book, Kuehnert breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the reader. She says this is due to how messy real life is compared to plotted novels. “Life is not linear. Life is messy. If I were a character, I would have hated myself at certain points. There are points, especially when trying to work through trauma and dealing with addiction in any way; there are spirals. The hardest part was trying to figure out how to make an arc of it and how to arrange it. I feel like it really clicked when Andrew, my editor, came on board, and he was like, ‘Write it like you would a mixtape.’” Two memoirs that inspired Kuehnert and helped with her healing process are Know My Name by Chanel Miller and a graphic novel memoir, Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me by Ellen Forney.
Just as Kuehnert doesn’t try to fit herself into a character archetype while telling her story, she says no one in her life portrayed in the book has just been a villain. “It’s emotional memory, but I always try to view everyone as whole people. I hope to have told the story with that balance.”
Chronicling her adolescence in the 90s, Kuehnert talks about how she was inspired by the riot grrrl movement that combined feminism, punk music, and politics. Sylvia Plath and Courtney Love were her idols when she began writing her own poetry. The way they wrote about the female experience spoke to her, as it still does for many writers today. She says the most important way the feminist movement has changed today is including intersectionality in the conversation, but Plath and Love still speak to many women because feminism is a continued fight. “It is timeless because we’re still grappling with how women’s bodies are viewed and used and how women’s emotions are viewed and what’s appropriate. I’ve had conversations with my mom where she’s been brought to tears apologizing saying, ‘My generation didn’t do enough,’ and now I’m saying the same thing to my niece.”
Kuehnert lives in Seattle with her family and works at a university in a role where she links campus and community. “I’ve always viewed college campuses as revolutionary spaces, which goes back to hearing my dad’s lore from the 60s. Being around new ideas and people who are in an ongoing pursuit of justice and making the world a better place is a huge inspiration.”
She writes in small chunks, usually an hour in the morning before her commute to work. “For me, this means that I’m always thinking about it and coming up with ideas.” Her advice for writing is to do it as often as possible. “I’m a big proponent of journaling and just having space to experiment and create and take risks. Following your own voice is key. My biggest thing to anyone who is writing is your voice does matter, so just keep doing it.”
If there is one thing Kuehnert wants readers to take away from her upcoming release, it’s the importance of creativity and community in healing and growing, whether they are dealing with their own trauma or just existing in this world. “Healing is a process. It’s not linear; it’s messy. Bringing in whatever creativity you can to grow and learn as a person is crucial.”
Pieces of a Girl will be released on March 26. Kuehnert’s other published works include I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone and Ballads of Suburbia. Kuehnert graduated with an MFA in creative writing from Columbia College Chicago.
