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Kings Fork High School graduate Ravynn Stringfield’s second novel will be hitting shelves on April 15. Written entirely in digital media exchanges, “Love in 280 Characters or Less” is about an aspiring writer juggling her freshman year of college while also having both a real life and online crush.

Her first book, “Love Requires Chocolate,” was published in August, 2024 and is the first of three interconnected standalones in the “Love in Translation” series. Each book, written by a different author, follows a similar plot about a girl studying abroad and having an unexpected romantic relationship.

“Love Requires Chocolate” follows Whitney Curry’s travels in Paris and her romantic rendezvous with grumpy French tutor and soccer player Thierry Magnon.

While “Love in 280 Characters or Less” will be published after “Love Requires Chocolate,” it was written first. Stringfield wrote it thinking it would be part of her graduate school dissertation project. 

“During my dissertation writing process, I needed something to really keep my head on straight, to remind myself that I was more than this research project that I was doing,” she said. “And the thing that I ended up doing for myself was writing novels throughout that process.”

The dissertation Springfield originally wrote the book for was about American culture. She decided to focus on how new media, race, and digital culture have become intertwined.

Stringfield has a rich history of reading and writing. As a young kid, she created her own family newspapers, documenting her and her mother’s day-to-day lives and family vacations. At 10 years old, she wrote her first 100-page book. She also kept a collection of Sunday comics and cataloged all her books.

While she’s always loved writing, Stringfield said she didn’t view it as a sustainable career and decided to pursue a higher education teaching position.

It wasn’t until her dissertation advisor encouraged her to try to get her project published that she considered becoming a serious author.

Because the book is written entirely through text messages, blog posts, emails, etc., with no typical prose, Stringfield said it took almost two and a half years to sell. 

She drafted the book in 2019, found an agent in 2020, and then started the search for a publisher. 

“I wanted to give up, like, basically every other Tuesday,” Stringfield said. “You know, the no’s were very constant. And my agent was convinced. She was like, ‘There is a home for this book. I know that we’re gonna find a place for it. This is too interesting of a concept for somebody to not bite on.’”

Stringfield’s agent, Leah Pierre, said she “really fell in love” with her work and it was the first time she saw a reflection of herself, a Black woman, in the pages of a book.

Pierre said they did have one interested editor prior to signing with Feiwel & Friends, but they requested the book be rewritten to include less of the social media aspects.

“It would have been great to get a deal, but it just wouldn’t have been as great if it wasn’t the book that she wanted to write,” she said.

Stringfield said it was worth the long wait in the end, because she “needed it to be an entirely digital display.”

One of her biggest inspirations for “Love in 280 Characters or Less” was Lauren Myracle’s “The Internet Girl” series that was written in AOL messages.

Micah Ariel Asante is one of Stringfield’s close friends and has read a lot of her work. 

Asante said Stringfield stands out from other authors who write about similar topics because of her humorous writing and how she’s consistently able to reference her literary ancestors. But, above all, Asante said it’s Stringfield’s passion that makes her shine.

“The things she cares about, she really cares about,” Asante said. “I don’t know another person who would be able to write a book about digital media with as much heart as Ravynn does.”

Stringfield said that this passion comes from writing about whatever she wholeheartedly wants to write about. She said writing a book is already a “daunting endeavor,” and she’s going to be the one who reads it the most, so she might as well write something she wants to read.

“Maybe it’s not for everyone, and I also don’t think that books need to be for everyone,” she said. “If you don’t like it, that’s okay, but I did what I needed to do, and I’m really proud of the book, and I’m really proud of  what it ended up being.”

Stringfield said that because this book is more niche than her first, the excitement has been a bit less. But, she said the people who do know about it are excited for it. 

Asante hasn’t read the entire book yet, only snippets that Stringfield has sent her, but she said she’s excited to finally get a copy in her hands.

Pierre said she’s seen people get excited for the book and it’s “really great to see the outpouring of interest and support.”

“I just love her writing,” Pierre said. “It’s so good, it’s so witty, it’s so funny. But it’s also very real, down to earth, very true, and speaks to these moments that we have in everyday life, and just really reflects the life or things that we go through on the page for people. Especially for Black girls like us, we need that.”