Alexi Silversmith lives in England, and has been a published author in another genre since the age of twenty-one – but only wrote her first M/M story this January. I’m sure we’ll hear from her frequently as she builds a base of loyal M/M fans.
Hello everyone. Today on this Bat-Channel, you’re going to be exposed to the ramblings of a newbie author – so new that I don’t even have any published M/M work yet, just contracts.
Ottawa Gay Pride Parade
But I’ve been hanging around on a lot of blogs and participating in lot of discussions on M/M writers’ forums and I’ve noticed something a little odd. Something about pen-names. I posted about it on my blog, and the lovely Wave saw it and asked me to expand on it for all of you. So if you hate this post, blame Wave 🙂
I’d say, at a rough guess, that nearly 80% of the e-published authors I come across write M/M fiction under a non-de-plume of some kind. It’s expected. In fact, I’m stunned when I talk to an M/M author and realise that they’re using their real name. You probably are too. But I wonder how many people realise what a huge percentage this is, when compared to conventional, print publishing? In my day-to-day life I have met many writers, and I have never met one single author who used a pseudonym for their print work.
There are good reasons for this tendency in e-publishing. I should know, because I write my M/M stories under a pen-name too.
I’ve spent the last several years of my life building up a career as an author of books for young adults and children, under my real name. The implications if I used the same name for M/M work are sticky in more ways than one. I don’t want to read an email from a puzzled ten year old asking me to explain gay sex. I’d rather not read one from an homophobic parent of a ten year old (and it’s stunning how many parents reveal heretofore unnoticed homophobic tendencies when it comes to their kids) asking me to drop dead. I certainly don’t want one from a large group of librarians who’ve decided to ban my YA work based on my lack of moral fibre, an all too real possibility in the US, though perhaps not in the UK.
Other writers that I spoke to about this were teachers or child-care workers or people with other sensitive jobs. Many of them were convinced that despite discrimination laws, their jobs would be under threat if it was discovered that they wrote about sex at all, let alone gay sex. Still others had family members who feared for their jobs or businesses, and had sworn them to secrecy.
Brighton Gay Pride Parade
One lady I spoke to said that she had a church group that she and her family love being part of and whom they rely on for many different kinds of support. This M/M author said she knew for a fact that her church group would reject not only her, but her entire family, if they found out about her M/M writing.
Now, I don’t know about you, but when I got to the last example I felt my mental gears grind to a halt.
Although the author in question described her church group as being ‘genuinely nice people’, and used language like ‘conservative’ and ‘traditional’ to describe them, I think it’s pretty clear that what the church group must actually be is ‘bigoted’. These people wouldn’t just stop talking to her at the annual charity bake-sale if they found out that she wrote gay fiction for a hobby. They would reject her entire family. That is harsh. So let’s call a spade a spade here. This church is anti-gay. Homophobic.
The lady writes romantic novels in which men fall in love and enjoy beautiful, erotic homosexual sex. Surely, then, she believes in gay rights and abhors bigotry? Yet she’s happy for her family to associate with a group of people who are teaching them that hating gay people – and rejecting those who believe in equal rights for gay people – is just A-Okay?
Huh?
The problem is that once you question this last example, you find yourself going back through all the other reasons – like the ones from people who fear that their jobs would be under threat, and my own excuse about not wanting kids to accidentally read work not meant for them…and suddenly it all seems a bit feeble. You start to wonder how the hell society is ever going to evolve if people don’t stand up and take that risk one day? Why anyone bothered to write anti-discrimination laws if none of us trust them? If kids go ahead and read stories that depict gay sex despite all the warnings posted on them, it’s not like the world will end, is it?
San Francisco Pride Parade
Gay, bisexual or transgendered people who want to live anything approaching a real life don’t get to come up with a pen-name and a bunch of excuses. They either come out and face all the hatred or they live a life of lies, repression and loneliness. And once again, I should know. I’m bisexual. Coming out was no freaking cakewalk. It still comes back to bite me in the ass (and not in the fun way).
When my mind had been working like that for a while, a sudden thought occurred to me: we’ve got a hell of a nerve writing M/M fiction with an attitude like that.
This is why some gay male writers of gay male fiction seem to hate all female M/M writers: By hiding what we do as if it were actually something to be ashamed of instead of a cool hobby or career, we turn what should be a legitimate romance genre into some kind of prurient, nasty secret that we use for jollies.
I know that there are people reading this who live in countries where gay people’s lives are still under threat from the authorities. Where, if anyone found out that they were reading M/M stories, they could face very real, and very nasty consequences from the law. And yet you’re brave enough to be here on this blog, reading and participating in the community you love.
Ottawa Gay Pride Parade
So just what are we all thinking with this pen-name stuff?
And the answer is…I don’t know. But maybe I – and all the pseudonymous M/M authors out there – should think about this issue a little more.
Gosh Alexi,
Wait, that’s not your real name is it. Sorry, don’t know what that is.
It seems to me you took what was a private discussion among colleagues and used it as a chance of feathering your own nest. How do you feel justified in doing that?
In a perfect world, authors would not need pseudonyms. And while not everyone’s reason was the same, they were all valid, to them, and that is what counts. And who are you to question it publicly? At least I did it within the privacy of our author group.
I’m sorry, but I feel that this reeks of disloyalty and opportunism. That is just my opinion.
And by the way, I write under my own name. Period.
Thanks.
Julie Lynn Hayes
Hi Julie
I think that Alexi was questioning herself as well as other authors who use pen names and she did indicate some of the legitimate reasons most of them do which are all in the piece so I won’t repeat them here. She didn’t name anyone but made reference to an incident which gave her pause, something we all do on occasion. There have been other discussions here about the use of pseuds and ambiguous pen names so Alexi’s post is not the only one.
In some instances when I interview authors, a few of them are paranoid that I do not publicize their private emails that members of their churches know, for fear of repercussions. I’m a lapsed Catholic because of the church’s hypocrisy – what it teaches and what it practices, (priests who commit sexual crimes against children are still allowed to serve and are protected by the Pope) yet they condemn members of their congregation who are gay which is the height of hypocrisy. I think the Catholic church is homophobic and bigoted and I’ve said that on many occasions. I’m sure that if they ever found out that a member of the church was writing M/M romances that person and her/his family would be excommunicated.
Hi Wave,
I find it interested that such a male-dominated group should be so homophobic and bigoted, especially considering all of the skeletons in their closet. Maybe the members of the church should do something about that – or find another church. One’s relationship with God does not hinge on what church you go to. I seriously think Jesus would not approve of the Catholics a great deal – churches were not meant to become wealthy and wield power, but to help others. I’m not saying the Catholics don’t, and I’m not picking on them, simply using them as an example, but a church shouldn’t be wealthy.
Back to the pseudonym thing – I believe she needs to do some research before she makes generalizations such as she made. And she needs to consider that it was a private discussion among friends, and yes, it does feel like a betrayal of confidences. I hate to think that our fellow authors will reconsider giving personal information or disclosing their true feelings for fear of being “outed”.
A nice post Alexi. Despite having one of the most liberal laws in this country I still don´t think I would write under my own name.
Just to give myself some privacy since my name is not that common and hard to use in English. And to keep a distance between personal things and “work”.
Things are pretty liberal here in the UK too – and yet it never occurred to me to write my m/m work under my real name. And I still don’t know if that’s because of the eminently sensible reasons that I mentioned above, or if I just couldn’t conceive of writing about sex under my own name! It makes no sense, since I’ve told my whole family about getting my first m/m contract and shown them the cover of And is Never Shaken, but…sometimes it takes a shock to make you examine your own motives, and that’s what the post above came from.
“But I wonder how many people realise what a huge percentage this is, when compared to conventional, print publishing? In my day-to-day life I have met many writers, and I have never met one single author who used a pseudonym for their print work.”
O_O What? Every single author I know, whether they write YA, M/F, M/M, romance, sci-fi etc…every single one uses a pen name. I know *hundreds* of authors, from NYT bestsellers to self-published and I can’t think of a single one who writes under their true name, with the exception of one non-fiction author I know.
I’m baffled by your statement. Are you honestly saying that M/M writers are the only ones using pen names? I’m a bit bothered by that because I know for a fact it isn’t true and I’m confused as to the reason behind making such a clearly inaccurate statement.
I don’t mean to be impolite or overly blunt, but I don’t understand where the idea that M/M use pseudonyms more or less than other authors comes from. For goodness sake, even Nora Roberts is a pseudonym, as is almost every name on the spines of your local bookstore’s romance section.
Hi Fae
Alexi is at work so I’m trying to answer a few comments until she can take over. Stephen King uses his real name and I believe a number of other print writers do as well including Steve Kluger who wrote that wonderful print book Almost like Being In Love which is M/M. I could be wrong of course but I always thought that the percentage of M/M authors who use pseuds was much higher than any other genre.
The thing I have difficulty with is ambiguous pen names because when I’m reviewing I don’t know whether to refer to the author by a feminine or male pronoun, and I can’t keep on using their full pen name because it becomes repetitous. Just yesterday I committed the heinous error of referring to a male author by a female pronoun. 🙂
I just checked with Steve Kluger. He confirmed that he uses his real name “It’s my real name–and I’ve never met an author (yet) who uses a pseud.” I won’t repeat the rest of his sentence because I don’t want to get “bitch slapped.” I sure hope that term is not offensive. 🙂
I haven’t seen anything to make me think M/M authors use pen names more or less than any other segment of authors. As I said, take a stroll through the local bookstore romance section and I can guarantee a huge portion, if not most, of those non-M/M, print NY published authors use pen names.
I don’t think I like the implication given here that M/M authors use pen names because we’re somehow ashamed. We use them for the same reasons the majority of other romance authors do, which can be any number of things. For myself it’s because my real name is ugly and I hate it. For some it’s for privacy sake, because the last thing you want is a rabid fan able to show up at your door (or worse a rabid anti-fan). For others it’s something as simple as brand identity, because readers tend to come to expect certain types of stories from an author, so a dramatic change in genre usually requires a new pen name for clarity’s sake.
Sure, I know of authors who use pen names out of shame of what they write or to avoid ridicule. The majority of those ashamed writers (that I know personally anyway) are those who write M/F, not M/M, though. I am honestly flummoxed as to where Alexi is getting this idea and would love for some clarification.
No, no! Don’t worry, the post was meant to spark discussion. Maybe this is because my experience of the publishing industry is in the UK? Or maybe it’s because I’ve worked with young adult and children’s publishers? I’ve literally *never* met an author with a pen-name. I’ve asked people about it and we all agreed it would be cool to make something up (my favourite was Florence B. Periwinkle, a suggestion from quite a famous English author) but that we were all way too vain to give up seeing our names on the front cover of our work.
Maybe pen-names aren’t an m/m writing or an e-publishing thing, but a romance writing thing?
“Maybe pen-names aren’t an m/m writing or an e-publishing thing, but a romance writing thing?”
That’s entirely possible, since even the YA authors I know skew heavily towards romance. I didn’t realize you weren’t talking about romance authors, since this blog is about romance novels. Perhaps that is where the misunderstanding came in, because honestly, in romance having a pen name is as common as being a brunette. I’ve never seen any indication the sexual preference of the characters has any bearing on whether the authors use a pen name or not.
Hi. This was an interesting post because I thought it was going to be essentially about some of the serious – and maybe not so serious – reasons for pen names. But I think there’s a tangled mix of topics here, some of them more provocative than others, some of which have already had a lot of screen time recently and are very close to people’s hearts, and some of which have caused *plenty* of soul searching and – as you say – “thinking more about”.
I know a *lot* of authors who use pen names, and in all genres. I wouldn’t like anyone to think that just because we write m/m we’re “scared” somehow to expose our real names, and it’s specific to this genre.
Many m/m authors like to use pen names, or initials and even different-gender names, but I’d imagine the reasons are also many and varied, from the concern about their standing in their local community that you’ve come across, to the preference to keep their professional and private persona separate, to the need to avoid confusion if a name’s already been taken, to the marketing benefits of having a memorable name on your book cover, to the fun of having another, possibly more glamorous name for public use!
Simsala
>>As a reader it doesn`t bother me when authors use pen-names.It`s the change of gender that sometimes comes with it that is more than a little disturbing.I feel betrayed.<< There have been countless discussions about gender confusion when M/M authors in particular use ambiguous pseuds, sometimes deliberately, to establish cred. as a gay man, and your comment about feeling betrayed has come up time and again by readers. However, some female M/M authors are now coming clean about their gender and hopefully many more who use ambiguous pseuds will feel confident enough about their ability as writers to "out" themselves. Trust is something that has to be earned and I hope that the feeling of being betrayed will go away as readers realize that even if their favourite M/M author may be female it's the writing that counts. OTOH I do have my fave male M/M authors whose style can't be duplicated.
And the thing is that any and all of those reasons are completely cool. It’s not my place to judge anyone or tell people they need to out themselves – like I said, I use a pen-name myself, and for reasons which seemed completely reasonable at the time.
This post really stemmed from something of an electrical storm in my brain where I really questioned myself and the reason why I automatically went for a pseudonym when it came to writing m/m. For a little while I felt really angry with myself, like I was letting all the other GBLT people in the world down by not being Loud and Proud enough.
I wanted to spark discussion and find out if, once other authors they thought about it too, they started doubting themselves as I did.
Clare
I love your penname but I don’t think that “Wave Toronto” would have quite the same cachet.
I mentioned the topic of religion in my earlier comment to Julie because I hate the way some religions demonise gays, lesbians and anyone else who doesn’t fit within their little box. K.Z’s post is a case in point.
Interesting post. Just when you think the USA is growing more enlightened, you turn on the TV and see the tea-bagging Palin nutjobs preaching about removing the whole church-state thing, making this country Christian “like our forefathers wanted,” which is utter bullshit. If Palin would actually read the constitution instead of making up lies like all of her GOP friends, she’d maybe learn what they REALLY said. I’m surprised there hasn’t been gay book-burning ceremonies sponsored by Fox News or Fat-Ass Limbaugh.
Regardless, it’s a sad state of affairs, and the bigotry continues, not just toward our president, but toward religion and orientation and whatever else is the cause of the day for the idiots.
I also have seen bigotry in M/M readers, have heard people say the same thing about “female writers know nothing, so I read only male authors.” Then I wonder if they have ANY clue whatsoever that there are hundreds of female authors who readers “think” are male, and vice versa. I recall one review (not on this blog) where the reviewer said, “Now this author really knows HIS stuff, which is why I recommend this M/M romance to every fan since this author lives the life HE describes,” and I just had to giggle because I knew for a fact that “he” was actually a “she.” 🙂
Hi KE
>>I recall one review (not on this blog) where the reviewer said, “Now this author really knows HIS stuff, which is why I recommend this M/M romance to every fan since this author lives the life HE describes,” and I just had to giggle because I knew for a fact that “he” was actually a “she.” << I hope that I never made generalizations about the competence of either men or women to write het or M/M. Victor J. Banis and William Maltese, two stalwarts of gay fiction, wrote het romance for probably decades under different pseuds and no one knew. Most M/M authors are female so unless I know FOR SURE (i.e. they told me) like Rick Reed, Sean Kennedy, Ethan Day etc. I assume the authors are female, which has landed me in a spot of trouble a time or two. 🙂 If I ever become an author I want the most outlandish name so people will remember me. 🙂
I felt really upset when I realised that Drew Zachary (one of my favourite m/m authors and one of the first I ever read) was in fact not a real person but the pen-name of a writing duo. And then when I found out that Chris Owen was a woman I was shocked all over again! I don’t make buying decisions based on the author’s sex, but I do build up little pictures in my head of who they are based on their names and it’s shocking how wrong you can be – and how disappointed you feel when you find that out!
Alexi
There are many writing partnerships that write separately and use another name. Not only is Drew Zachary a partnership with Chris who is female but she is also Canadian 🙂
Jamie Craig is another well known M/M partnership made up of Vivien Dean and Pepper Espinoza.
What’s funny is that when I think about Chris Owen’s books I tend to think of them as being set in the US, whereas Drew Zachary’s books feel very strongly rooted in Canada. I wonder if that’s on purpose?
Every discussion about pen-names reminds me of the classical German author Kurt Tucholsky (1890-1935)He has written under his real name and four different pen-names.For no particular reason.I dare to say just for fun.
So it`s common for authors using pen-names for a long time.
As a reader it doesn`t bother me when authors use pen-names.It`s the change of gender that sometimes comes with it that is more than a little disturbing.I feel betrayed.
THIS COMMENT WILL APPEAR IN TWO PLACES BECAUSE AS USUAL I MADE A MISTAKE AND WP WON’T ALLOW ME TO DELETE ONE. 🙂
Simsala
>>As a reader it doesn`t bother me when authors use pen-names.It`s the change of gender that sometimes comes with it that is more than a little disturbing.I feel betrayed.<< There have been countless discussions about gender confusion when M/M authors in particular use ambiguous pseuds, sometimes deliberately, to establish cred. as a gay man, and your comment about feeling betrayed has come up time and again by readers. However, some female M/M authors are now coming clean about their gender and hopefully many more who use ambiguous pseuds will feel confident enough about their ability as writers to “out” themselves. Trust is something that has to be earned and I hope that the feeling of being betrayed will go away as readers realize that even if their favourite M/M author may be female it’s the writing that counts. OTOH I do have my fave male M/M authors whose style can’t be duplicated.
To satisfy my own curiosity, I did a brief poll of a romance writing community I’m a member of. So far, of the answers I’ve gotten, 93% of the authors use a pen name. Only 7% do not. Of those who do, only one is a M/M author, the others are all M/F authors.
Granted, it’s a small voting group yet, since I just put the poll up half an hour ago, but I think it shows the trend towards pen names as I suspected. I fully expect the trend to stay the same as more authors chime in with their answers.
Fae
Your comment about doing a poll gave me an idea so I polled a few male M/M writers, and so far 75% of them use their own names. So there seems to be a definite division between male and female M/M writers.
Of course this is not scientific by any means – I just emailed them and they responded and obviously I don’t have the time right now to contact a large group but I’ll think of a real survey since I love stats. 🙂
I’d be fascinated to see the results. I honestly can’t think of a single m/m romance author who writes under their own name that I’m aware of. I’m so curious now! 🙂
I am a m/m romance author, and this is my real name, which I publish under. Now you know at least one!
And a fellow Dreamspinner author, at that! 🙂 I’d use my real name if it weren’t so ugly, lol. My choice to use a pseud is purely aesthetic.
Stephani Hecht commented on my blog that she uses her real name. So there is another m/m author. 🙂
Do you think this might be because of the division between ‘gay fiction’ and ‘m/m romance’? From what Fae says, it seems as if pseudonyms are a strong romance writing tradition.
Interesting post (and comments). I write under my real name. I never even considered a pen name, although there are times I wish I would have chosen a more gender ambiguous pseudonym. Especially when I see posts from people claiming they’d never read a gay romance written by a woman – which is far more often than I’d like. However, at the end of the day, I’m glad my name is on my books. I’m proud of my writing. 😀
I have to admit, I get a little pang when I see ‘Alexi’ on that book cover, even though I picked the pen-name because it’s kind of a nick-name for me and still has significance.
Yikes, that’s a lot of comments. Thanks for pitching in, Wave.
Julie, I’m sorry that I seem to have upset you – it never occurred to me that was taboo or a ‘betrayal’ to mention in passing something which was discussed openly with dozens of authors on a writer’s forum. I have not mentioned anyone’s name, and in fact altered the circumstances slightly so that the person could not possibly be recognised.
The only thing I’ve done here is to mention my own instinctive reaction to what was said and how it made me think about pen-names and wonder if any of us, including me, have really considered the real reasons why we use them. I’m not indicting those who use pen-names, since, as you pointed out, I have one myself.
We’re all part of the same community here. We all share many of the same interests and concerns. We’re all on the same side. Part of that is discussing and questioning things, even things that most of us take for granted. There’s nothing wrong about that, an no need for anyone to feel attacked or slighted.
Crap, no time to read all the responses, stupid job. 🙂
I just did a post on this a couple of weeks ago. It was mostly would I write with a pen name and if so what would I use. Looking at some of the pen names (many of which I couldn’t even pronounce in their efforts to be cutsey and stand out) he consensus seemed to be that I should use Royale Icing. Why not? Everyone loves cake. 🙂
But I looked at a few factors: a) family – my teen daughter knows what I read and couldn’t likely care less; my parents might not “get it” but wouldn’t care; extended family – if you don’t like it I don’t care; I’m not in a relationship so no spouse to consider. b) work – no one would care, we have many gay and gay/couples working in my field (government) so it would be a non-issue. c) friends – I don’t belong to a church or any kind of group, my on-line friends would fall into the “yay you” or “I don’t get it but whatever” categories.
So there is really no reason or me to become Royale Icing or any other name. It’s a shame that people’s jobs are in jeopardy or friendships but as you noted, would I want to be friends with people who think gay people are evil and going to hell and me along with them? I don’t think so.
So if the day ever comes, you’ll see my real name out there and while I might not hand out copies of my book at the family reunion, I wouldn’t hide it either.
Damn, I wish I’d have thought of Royale Icing! Mind you, if you wanted to hit the Ellora’s Cave level of cutsie-ness you’d need to spell it Roiyelle Iczing or something else with unnecessary extra letters in it.
Interesting post. Given I’ve not even got something suitable for submission / query yet, I’m still in the ‘possibly maybe if it happens’ phase of deciding whether to use a pen-name or not. At the moment I’m leaning towards ‘sort of but not really’, by which I mean I’m thinking of using my 1st & middle names; partly because my married surname is fairly common (especially in the romance field), my maiden surname would feel wrong, but mainly because I actually really like the sound my 1st & middle names make together 🙂 Against that, I have the fact I’ve built up, over the last 10 years, a pretty strong identity as Tiggothy (including a small business named after it) and the thought of doing all that over again? Hmm…
I guess I’ve not really contributed much to the discussion, have I? *shrug*
Yes you have. I originally wrote a bit about how much fun it was playing with names and having the chance to reinvent yourself, but my post was long so I ended up cutting that part out. In hindsight, that may have been a mistake.
Interesting post – and interesting comments!
I write under a pseudonym; in fact I write under two, although Cathie Culver, who writes the sort of stuff nobody’s grandmother could object to, has yet to be published.
I never even considered writing under my own name. The main reason for this is that not only is my real name incredibly common (and therefore not great for Google purposes), I share it with my mother-in-law. So it’s just not uniquely “me” in the way that JL Merrow is. Hell, half of my real name I’ve only had since I got married.
The other reason is that I’m an intensely private person. I have, on occasion, seen my real name attached to stuff online – and it always makes me uncomfortable. Writing as JL Merrow or Cathie Culver gives me back some control over my identity.
I get a real thrill when I see my pseudonym on a cover. The fact that I chose it (and both my pseuds were chosen for reasons of personal significance), rather than was given it, makes it more my name, not less.
My real name is fairly unusual and I took a lot of teasing and bullying about it, growing up. I always used to swear I’d change it when I was old enough. Eventually I suppose I grew into it, and it became a little bit of ‘thing’ for me, to aschew nicknames and wear it with pride, like two fingers up to the people who used to make me hate it.
Even though Alexi Silversmith is a private joke between me and myself and has strong significance for me, I still feel vaguely sorry that I don’t see my name on my new work. Something I’m going to need to get over.
I must admit I’m way way too egotistical even to consider a pen-name!! This does confuse publishers as I write in a heck of a lot of different genres, whether or not the story has GLBT characters. 🙂 I suppose that makes me both tricky and proud! Ah well. This revelation would not, I suspect, surprise my mother, who in her very late 70s still wonders why I don’t put more sex in my books, bless her …
Axxx
*Snort* I dread to think the sort of thing my mum will say when she gets her hands on my m/m stuff. She’s embarrassing enough about the books for younger readers – I can just imagine her trying to sell gay romance to the milkman or the woman sat next to her on the bus!
Keep in mind…just because an author swears up and down and right and left that they use their real name, that’s not necessarily true. Only the publishers (the people who see the actual legal documents associated with the books) know for certain. In other words, polls aren’t always a good indication.
Well, I use my real first name, but I don’t use my last name because it’s one I share with only about eight other people in the entire country, and I don’t feel I have any right to put *them* in the uncomfortable position of having to explain my work to anyone who might become curious and ask.
Though my husband was fine and supportive with the idea of me using our last name, I thought it would be fairer to those distant relatives (most of whom I have never met) to use a more generic but still meaningful-to-me family name.
I don’t like the assumption of authors “hiding” behind pen names. There are an endless number of good reasons for using a pen name. Each author has to make her own decision. To use your own real name, “Alexi”, might be something you are ready to do. Good for you. Respect that other authors will either come to that conclusion or not, on their own time.
I have some really good friends who are homophobic out of ignorance or religious bias pounded into them at a young age, but they’re learning too. I’m sure there are good people in your own life who have some backward ideas about the world, even harmful ideas. Are you going to reject all those people because of that?
You have to let people grow up at their own pace. You can help them along, but in the end, it’s up to them.
I have to disrespectfully disagree with letting people grow at their own pace, and it’s up to them. Prejudice of any kind is wrong, whether based on skin color, religion or sexual orientation, or anything else. That’s part of the problem is that people tolerate other people’s intolerance toward gays – I think because it involves that s-e-x thing that so many people afraid to think about, or talk about.
But it doesn’t, not really, it’s about that l-o-v-e thing that everyone should talk about, and everyone should share. Yeah, it’s not a perfect world, by any means, but how long do people need to wait to have rights which should be theirs now? It’s time for a major wake-up call around the world, and it’s time people say hey, you, I’m not taking this any more – you’re no better than me, and your opinion isn’t either.
Zero level tolerance for intolerance – love everyone.
I have yet to understand how someone else’s gay marriage affects anyone other than the couple involved? Marriage for everyone. Period.
Thanks, hopping of the soapbox now.
Even if you are still cross at me, I have to say it: bravo.
Julie
The only thing I’m intolerant about is bigots in whatever shape or colour or religion. I think adults teach their kids to be intolerant which is why in the 21st century we’re still having race riots, and if parents are allowed to practice bigotry, when are we ever going to have a world free of bias? But that’s another soap box for which I frequently get “baitch” slapped. 🙂
Actually, I’m not ready to use my legal name in the m/m community yet, because I’m not ready to jeopardise my established writing career for the new one. I don’t think my post suggests that anyone should ‘out’ themselves – I just think we all need to have a look at the reasons why we use pen-names, question why pen-names are so prevalent among us. If the answers make us happy, that’s fine. If not, we can chose to change.
When you’re gay or transgendered or bisexual, you usually don’t get to reject the people in your life with homophobic beliefs. They reject you first. For me that includes my sister and brother-in-law, who don’t want me around their daughters, for what they believe are obvious reasons (if I like other women, I must like little girls too, right?).
But thank you for reminding us all that we need to be a little more tolerant.
*waves at Fae* My legal name is Angelia Sparrow. Has been since 1989. Naomi chose a pseud, but I like mine. I started writing under it, mainly because I just KNEW if I used a pseudonym, I was going to forget it at a crucial time during a public function and fail to answer to it or sign a book with my real name.
When I decided to branch away from my usual writing into religious books and children’s books, I took a pseudonym. Because I didn’t want parents to google me and refuse to buy my kids’ books for fear Teh Sexeh had invaded them in age-inappropriate ways.
And Alexi, your mom sounds like mine. Mine doesn’t actively promote the gay books, but she does read them.
I have a tendency to assume the writers of m/m fiction are female, until I am informed otherwise. It’s a fandom bias.
Yeah, my mum’s a gem. It hasn’t always been easy with everyone in my family, but she’s always been 100% behind me, even when we were at each other’s throats:-)
Yes, I use a pen name; no, I’m not hiding. My moniker was created by me, for me. I chose it. It’s liberating. This new name gives me the freedom to express myself completely, something my upbringing never allowed. “Eden” is the neverending work in process that is me.
Also, my current last name is a holdover from my favorite mistake. I don’t want my ex’s name appearing on one of my books. So I made one up that has deep, personal meaning to me, and to those who know me.
Anyway. That said, several of you touched on the subject of religious intolerance. I found a commercial quite by accident, and haven’t checked the group out yet (intend to), but am sure intrigued by their video clip. Strange that it’s considered “adult content.” It’s called United Church of Christ – Bouncer at YouTube. This group’s catch phrase is “Jesus didn’t turn people away, we don’t either,” and their advertisements feature a diverse mix of people, including gay couples.
Wonderful post, Alexi, and it certainly provided food for thought.
Thank you, Eden. And can I just say that I think your pen-name is one of the prettiest I’ve come across? I was nearly Alexi Winters, which I suppose would have made us pen-name cousins.
Hi, Alexi. 🙂
Interesting topic, this. 🙂
I’m female and I write under a pseudonym, technically. In practice, my ‘pen name’ is the name I use in RL for everything that doesn’t involve legal matters.
Not out of any desire to fool people or trick them or even pretend to be someone/something I’m not, but because I use my birth name for my writing and social interactions. I use the name given me at adoption for legal matters and ‘real’ jobs.
So when I chose to use T.C. Blue on my stories, it was because to me, that’s who I am. Tisienne Corana Blue. I went with T.C. because I felt at the time that the full name would possibly end up being longer than titles. LOL
I suppose I’m teetering on the fence, in a way, because what I consider to be my ‘real’ name is NOT my legal name, but IS how the people in my life know me.
I know, mine is a very strange situation, but there it is. That’s why I use a ‘pen’ name, though it’s more real to me than the name on my social security card. *shrugs*
Oh, and yes. Everyone in my life knows what I write. Some have read it, some aren’t that interested, and some are definitively dead-set against ever reading it… but they know. I don’t have any secrets (except my deeply despised legal name LOL).
Thanks for this post. It’s interesting seeing what everyone’s got to say!
~Tis
You’re welcome TC, and thank you. It sounds like your ‘pen-name’ is actually far more real to you than your ‘real-name’ which kind of blurs the boundaries, especially since you’re completely open about your work.
Lively discussion, but there hasn’t been any mention of publishers who may have asked their female writers to adopt male or gender-neutral names back when this was a new genre and male readers notoriously snobbish about reading female authors. Or that once you write under a pseudonym and have developed a fan base you don’t really want to change your name—you’re kinda stuck (at least until you change genres and can start fresh with a new name and zero fans).
For some authors and publishing houses, a lot of effort goes into choosing the right name (not too common, not too uncommon, not too similar to a direct competitor, etc). It can be a business decision and may not be entirely up to the author.
Nadja
Nadja, I had no idea publishers did that! Seems a little pointless now that we all acknowledge m/m romance as a female dominated field (just like all romance, I suppose) but you’re totally right: once you’ve spent several years building up a ‘Name’ and a following and brand recognition and all that, you just can’t change it. That’s the reason why I didn’t want to write m/m stories under my legal name, which I’ve spent several years building up as a ‘Name’ in children’s writing.
I guess another reason why people might want the sense of safety and anonymity that a pen-name brings is because you don’t know how your m/m stories might be received. If they don’t go down well and you get flack, at least you don’t have that connected to your real name and easily accessible via Google. Then by the time you realise that everyone loves your work and you don’t mind that being connected to your real name, it’s too late to change.
I agree with a few of the above posts; a pen name gives specific control to the author of how they are perceived via name. I don’t think a different name is deceiving, it’s just an additional definition of the person.
I might be belittling the controversy of having a fake name, but Lewis Carrol, Mark Twain, even Shania Twain are pseudonyms. I’m fiddling with a pen name which incorporates bits of my common real name, and the saint I chose for confirmation. Personally I’d take the pen name like a fun secret identity.
As for letting others, like family and friends, know what I write; I’ll tell them the title, give them a warning and if they don’t like it, fine.
Perhaps people use pen names so it’s easier on the rest of the family. Would a mother want her son associated with the name of a writer of erotica? Especially at school where kids will twist things to hurt?
Coming up with a pseudonym is fun – it feels like reinventing yourself. I should probably have left the part mentioning that in my post, but I had run long and something had to go.
I’m not sure how likely kids would be to Google the name of a friend’s parent (seriously, I don’t have children, do they do that?) or come across m/m erotic stories in any other way – unless they were specifically looking for them. But would keeping that a secret from your kid’s friends also mean keeping it a secret from your kid? A friend of mine who is a literary fiction writer (and whose books contain strong language and sexy bits) is completely honest with her kids about what she writes and her kids are very proud of her. She’s told them they can’t read her work for themselves until they’re ‘old enough’, which she’s decided is 16, since that’s the age of consent here in the UK. Their friends are too impressed by the fact that she’s a writer to make fun, although I suppose if any of them sneak one out of the library and find the sexy bits that might change.
I guess a lot of parents would try to keep any mention of what someone called ‘Teh Sexeh’ far, far away from their kids, but I’m not sure how healthy that is in the long run.
I use a pen name for my m/m writing because my real name is unusual and my day job is writing non-fiction (articles, not books). As a result, I have a large internet presence under my own name; if you Google it, the first ten pages of the search are actually me and the things I’ve written/done. What’s more, if you Google it, you can find out where I used to work (all of my previous jobs, not just one), and where I work now.
I choose to keep my professional and fiction-writing lives separate for privacy reasons. There’s really no reason why someone looking for information on my book(s) needs to know the address of my real life workplace, or anything else that I don’t choose to share with them as part of my public persona.
I hear you! I spent many years building up my Google profile so that people could find information about my children’s and YA books easily. I have a whole internet persona as a friendly children’s writer who parents don’t worry about their kids emailing or going to book-signings to meet. Frankly the thought of doing anything to damage that brought me out in hives.
I know this is rather OT, but if your current work address is online, be careful. Someone stole my identity and committed online fraud with it a couple of years ago with not much more than that. The advice I was given at the time was to make sure that your age and date of birth are *nowhere* online, as without that, no matter what other information they have, fraudsters will be stumped.
It’s scary what the fraudsters can do, isn’t it? Luckily my birthday, etc isn’t online, so hopefully that’ll make life harder for them.
For those curious, the poll amongst romance authors regarding pen name/no pen name stands at 94% yes (53 votes) 5.5% no (3 votes). All but 5 are published authors, about 50% NY mainstream published, and only 3 are M/M authors, the rest are M/F authors.
🙂 Stats are fun lol.
Pie-chart! Pie-chart!
Ahem. So it’s definitely a romance writing thing, rather than just an m/m thing. It must be, as someone suggested, ‘Teh Sexeh’ that does it.
LOL yeah, that seems to be the general consensus. Of those who voted about 20 or so commented with their reasons and by and large the main reason was not wanting people to know they wrote books with sex in them, regardless of the type of sex. Whether it be kids, inlaws, parents, friends, co-workers, boss, it seems to mostly be about other people not knowing, with a small smattering of various other reasons like identity theft concerns, stalkers, and people like me who just don’t like their real name.
As Tam already pointed out, I use my real name. So far, I’ve only had one backlash from doing so. I graduated from a Baptist high school and one of my old school chums decided to tell me that she could not “condone” the types of books I write. Since I really never cared for her, even back in the good ol’ days, I just shrugged it off. But, not using a pen name was my own personal choice and I would never fault a fellow author for using one.
AUTHORS
Since this was raised here I decided to run an informal poll on the site about M/M authors pen names. You don’t have to state why you use a penname – just say whether you do or not and if you’re male or female. The poll is on the top right hand sidebar. If you’re still monitoriing this thread I would appreciate it if you would vote (that means you, too, Alexi 🙂 )
Already done. I love how you’re just:
“AUTHORS! GET your ASSES up here and VOTE!”
If we had you in the general election, voter turn out would definitely jump.
Alexi
>>“AUTHORS! GET your ASSES up here and VOTE!”<< I would never say that. I'm always polite and say please and thank you, AFTER. 🙂
“AUTHORS! PLEASE GET your ASSES up here and VOTE, THANK YOU!”
It is an interesting post indeed, though I agree some reason for the use of pen names are missing.
First off there are just as many authors who use pen names as authors who use their own name. Just as there are a tangle of actors who use their real name and others who use stage names. I wonder if there are any statistics.
Second off. There are many many many reasons for using a pen names, some as simple as for the thrill of using a different name.
Focusing on m/m another reason can be added. While it is romance, it is still EROTIC romance. That is slightly different than writing a “typical” garden variety romance story. It makes no different if it is m/f erotica. It is the same as admitting one watches porn. I think the fact that it is erotica, is also a large reason for the use of pen names. It would almost be the same as announcing at work (or church) for that matter that you watch porn or visit sex stores.
Personally, while I don’t keep it a secret that I read (m/m) erotica, I also don’t go announcing it everyone I know or at work. I think it would be a tad bit more if you are actually an author.
To me, the use of pen names is also a way to keep work & personal/private separate.
Good post though, Alexi, though I feel the topic was a bit short, but also your personal observations.
I’m late as usual, but my like many other people, I chose my pen name for aesthetics and branding, not to hide. I’ve been going by a bunch of names (and initials) since birth, nicknames and the ones on my birth certificate. It’s never felt like shame or hiding to me; the only emotions I associate with my different names are fun, affection and nostalgia.
I know stories behind print pen names in romance and they all seem to follow on the marketing/branding idea.
You’re not late at all. Thanks for commenting. Excuse me one moment
(Deep breaths. Do NOT fangirl squee just because K A Mitchell commented on your post. DO NOT FANGIRL SQUEE)
SQQQQQQQQUEEE! K A Mitchell commented on my post!
Dammit.
Ah…but you make a very good point that many people go by nick-names anyway and that a pen-name can just be an extension of that. Ahem.
I write everything under a pen name. I also write het, f/f and transgender. It’s not that I want to hide my identity as much as I want to keep my private life as private (and safe) as possible.
Long before I published anything, I had received graphically disgusting phone calls, threats, had people send me emails telling me they know where my daughter goes to school… All because I worked with the GCSC (the original Gay Community Services Center). So when I began to write, I automatically came up with a psuedonym.
I don’t think anyone who knows me does NOT know I write GLBT. Everyone who knows me knows I’m bisexual, so what I write is really not an issue. I’ve worked for employers who had reservations about the erotic content, of course. But I tend to see their point. Their issue is not the gender of the participants, only the graphic nature of their participation.
If you type my “real” name into google, though, you will get an imdb profile, but not a website that will lead you, with just a little effort, to my home address and phone number.
After my daughter’s principal told me a man came in the building looking for my daughter, I keep my “real” name as private as possible.
Wow, AM, that someone came searching for your child is absolutely horrifying. How incredibly frightening that must have been.
The upside of the story is that the principal, a four foot ten nun, quick stepped that guy out of the building and gave him such a ‘talking to’ he never showed his face again.
I should say that he might have been there for any number of reasons having to do with politics, not necessarily ‘gay rights’ politics. Or, he could be a personal enemy. I’ve made a few. : (
Which, as far as really, really good reasons for having a pen-name goes, kicks ass. But as far as stuff you actually have to live through goes, sucks hairy donkey balls. I’m really sorry you had to go through that AM.
(Also – fangirl squee! A M Riley commented on my post!)
I’m late to the discussion, but just to add my $0.02: I write under a pen name, though I made a conscious decision to choose one with no gender ambiguity. There were a couple of reasons for this: for starters, my real name is really common (I share a last name with several celebrities, in fact, and no, we are not related, alas; my real name is also more gender-neutral sounding; it’s occurred to me also that my real name sounds faker than my pseudonym, so… thanks, parents!). So there was that. I also have done a lot of writing/editing under my real name, all of it nonfiction, some science/tech-y stuff, some of it for children, and that was also a consideration, whether I wanted it all linked together through the magic of Google. (I decided I didn’t.) I agree with some others about control, it’s about that for me, too. (Although everyone close to me knows both names.)