Saturday, April 14, 2012

The Name Game

Many current authors use pseudonyms.  Yesterday, Alan wrote about JD Robbs' Eve Dallas mysteries.  JD Robb is the alias of best-selling author Nora Roberts.  Kate Brian, the best-selling author of the Private series also writes YA under her given name, Kiernan Scott.  YA and chick lit author Meg Cabot has also written under the name Jenny Carroll.  The most famous pseudonyms are probably Dr. Seuss and Mark Twain aka Theodor Geisel and Samuel Clemens, respectively.  Authors use pseudonyms for various reasons to market themselves for different genres, age groups or when working with different publishers. Or maybe they just want to spice up their given name. 

A lot of who worked at Borders and write for this blog also love to engage in creative writing too.  Whether it be for fun or dreams of being published or produced.  Rebecca has written Christian fiction and her sister, Naomi, has written fantasy fiction. Claire has been working on an epic western. I write screenplays.  Despite all this writing, we can't get enough !  I started thinking, what pseudonyms would we use ?  We thought we'd share them with you.  Maybe one day, you'll see our books on a shelf under one or both of our names !!

Rebecca and Naomi are planning collaborating their talents and writing a dystopian series using the collective name, Reyna McNicol.  I like, it sounds a lot more mysterious and intriguing than Suzanne Collins.

Jess P. would like to write children's books under the name, Pardetym.  

Rachel would like to write fiction mystery/horror/fantasy for Independent Readers under the name, Eerie James.  I can see her giving R.L. Stine a run for his money under this name !

After finishing her western, Claire would go on to write mysteries Romance and Mystery novels under the name Kathy Brooks.

Our resident comedian, Alan, would write Erotica under the name Harry Thoracks.   

I write my screenplays under my own name and with my trusted writing partner but I'd love to write a YA series that is a contemporary version of Sweet Valley High.  Something contemporary and soapy but still sweet with a moral.  I'd use the name Cupcake Arquette a blend of my favorite my food and my celebrity dream man, David Arquette.

 What about you?  What pseudonym would you use or do you use?

2 comments:

james paul said...

as a young man, Mark Twain worked as a Mississippi river boat captain. Ropes with knots tied in them (or rocks) every 6 feet (1 fathom) were used to measure the depth of water...12 feet was required for a riverboat. "twain" means two. "mark twain" meant there was depth enough to navigate the boat.

Unknown said...

I love all y'alls pseudonyms...

I also have this great desire to one day have a book series under the name HM Komorowski, and whenever anyone asks me what HM stands for, I would make up something else: Harold Maurice, Harry Marigold, Horace Mildred, etc.

@james paul: Ooh... That is so so interesting. I love learning random facts like that. Thanks for sharing! :)