Juliana Hatfield 'Grows Up' With New Album, Book

With her music and forthcoming book, alterna-pop darling Juliana Hatfield calls herself an "emotional exhibitionist." But in "real life," she's a shy, guarded person who lets her works tell the story.

"It's not hard for me to be really honest with my feelings in my music," Hatfield tells Spinner. "It's very hard for me to be open in my real life. I'm a very guarded person in real life, but music has always been an outlet for me. It's kind of hard to experience all the things I was going through. I just had to really immerse myself in these dark feelings. It was kind of cathartic in the end to get it out of my system."

The fruits of her emotional labor will be found on 'How to Walk Away,' an album that hits stores on Aug. 19, as well as her autobiography 'When I Grow Up,' published by Wiley, on Sept. 29.

"I've always wanted to write a book," Hatfield says. "It was this dream I always had in the back of my mind. I wanted to be a writer before I was a musician. When I started making music for a living, I kind of put the book idea on hold for like 15 years."

The daughter of a radiologist and a fashion critic, Hatfield grew up in the Boston music scene, graduating from the Blake Babies to explore a solo career. About six years ago, she started penning the book and stayed determined to finish it.

"I thought I had a kind of interesting story," Hatfield says. "It's a very common dream that people have to write a book. It seems like such a huge undertaking. But then so many books are written and published, that you start to realize maybe I could actually do it. Maybe it's not impossible. I was very ambitious about it. I'm really proud of myself for finishing it."

Don't expect a juicy tell-all about the Boston music scene, her days with the Blake Babies and frequent collaborator, the Lemonheads Evan Dando, however. "I change a lot of names," Hatfield says. "I'm not holding back anything about what goes on in my head and what goes on in the road. I'm not exposing anything that I think is going to embarrass myself. It's mostly just about being honest about how I'm feeling."

That carries over into her music as well. The title of her forthcoming album, 'How to Walk Away,' is drawn from the first song on the album, 'The Fact Remains.' "I stole one of my lyrics from myself," Hatfield says. "I thought it had a nice ring to it. It sums up the whole vibe of the record. The record is about being deliberately alone, getting away from bad situations or walking away from everything to try to get some piece and understanding."