Stephanie Kuehn

Kuehn wanted to be a filmmaker as a teen and grew up in Berkeley, California.[2] She grew up reading books by V.C. Andrews and Peter Straub.[3]

Kuehn went to John F. Kennedy University and the University of California, Santa Cruz.[4] She has a bachelor's degree in linguistics, a master's degree in sports psychology, and a doctorate in clinical psychology.[5][4]

Her background as a psychologist is one of the reasons why many of her novels have narrators who are dealing with mental health issues.[6]

She currently lives in Northern California with her husband and three children.[7]

Her debut young adult novel, Charm & Strange, was published by St. Martin's Griffin in 2014 and tells the story of a teenage athlete who believes he might be a werewolf.[8] Charm & Strange won the William C. Morris Award in 2014[9] and was nominated for a Carnegie Medal in 2014.[10]

Delicate Monsters, her sophomore novel, about the intersecting lives of three troubled teenagers, was published in 2015 by St. Martin's Griffin.[11] It won the Northern California Book Award in the category Children's Fiction for Older Readers in 2016.[12]

Her third novel, Complicit, about a teen dealing with the aftermath of his sister burning down a barn and being sentenced to juvenile detention, was published by St. Martin's Griffin in 2016.[13] Complicit was also on Booklist's 2014 Top 10 Crime Fiction for Youth,[14] the 2015 Reading List of the Texas Library Association,[15] YALSA's 2015 Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults list,[16] and YALSA's 2017 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults list.[17] Complicit was also nominated for a Kentucky Bluegrass Award in 2016[18] and a Rhode Island Teen Book Award in 2016.[19]

Kuehn's fourth novel, The Smaller Evil, is about a teen who arrives at a self-help center to deal with his anxiety and chronic illness, but stumbled into strange happenings when the retreat leader appears not to be who he seems.[20] The Smaller Evil was published by Dutton in 2016.[21] It received a starred review from School Library Journal[22] Kuehn was awarded the PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship for The Smaller Evil in 2015.[23]

Young adult novels

• Charm & Strange (St. Martin's Griffin, 2014)
• Delicate Monsters (St. Martin's Griffin, 2015)
• Complicit (St. Martin's Griffin, 2016)
• The Smaller Evil (Dutton, 2016)
• When I Am Through With You (Dutton, 2017)

Short stories

• in Feral Youth, edited by Shaun David Hutchinson (Simon Pulse, 2017)
• in (Don't) Call Me Crazy, edited by Kelly Jensen (Algonquin, 2018)
• in His Hideous Heart, edited by Dahlia Adler (Flatiron, 2019)

Won

2014

• William C. Morris Award for Charm & Strange (St. Martin's Griffin, 2014)[9]

2016

• Northern California Book Award, Children's Fiction for Older Readers for Delicate Monsters (St. Martin's Griffin, 2015)[12]

Nominations

2014

• Carnegie Medal for Charm & Strange (St. Martin's Griffin, 2014)[10]

2016

• Kentucky Bluegrass Award for Complicit (St. Martin's Griffin, 2016)[18]
• Rhode Island Teen Book Award for Complicit (St. Martin's Griffin, 2016)[19]