He portrayed Bill Denbrough in the 1990 television adaptation of It, and Howard Cottrell in the television adaptation of Autopsy Room Four that aired on the 2006 television anthology Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King. He has some connections to horror, and the aforementioned Stephen King. And he is also a writer! What you may NOT know is that while The Waltons may not cross over into my world of speculative fiction, we actually have some things in common. Maybe you’re not old enough, but there is an actor named Richard Thomas. But I can honestly say that I once thought about changing my pen name. Is your name Steven King and not Stephen King? Ha, that guy has certainly suckered in people looking for the king of horror. I write across fantasy, science fiction, horror, Southern gothic, transgressive, magical realism, neo-noir, thrillers, and literary fiction, but just use Richard Thomas for all of those entries. I think this is a very good reason to have a pen name, as long as you really feel that the separation is needed. You can see how he keeps those audiences separate. But did you know he is also Nick Cutter and Patrick Lestewka? Nick writes horror ( The Troop) and Patrick military thrillers. Craig Davidson came up writing literary fiction that sometimes got gritty. contributes to the Halo and Dead Space franchises. Brian is known for horror, surrealism, and a certain slippery neo-noir. Did you know that Brian Evenson is also B.K. Thomas for the YA and Richard Thomas for the horror porn. Yes, you may want to keep those readers separate. Maybe you write historical YA Christian romance as well as that erotic tentacle horror we mentioned earlier. GENRES AND CAREERS YOU WANT TO KEEP SEPARATEĪnother reason you may want a pseudonym is that you could write in two VERY different genres, and want to keep them far apart from each other. If they’re fans, they’ll seek out your work.) Man, didn’t mean that to sound so ominous. (Though as we will see in the next category-if people want to find you, they will. There are some good reasons for doing this, but make sure that this is important to you, as changing your pen name multiple times can really make it hard for past fans of your work to find you. You may have written work earlier in your career, and need a fresh start. You may be transgender or fluid and no longer want to use your birth name. Perhaps you are getting married and want to either keep your maiden name or change it to your married name. It’s a shame that we still have to do this. Sometimes you might want to use a pen name to keep your work in separate lanes of the highway, and other times to try and get an unbiased response to your submission. There may be other reasons you want to change your name or create a pen name, other biases to avoid-not just gender, but culture, nationality, religion, orientation, you name it. This is a very personal decision, but it is totally valid to create a gender-neutral pen name (Chris, Alex, Tyler, etc.) or use initials. Many contemporary female authors use initials, as well-N.K. Robb is actually Nora Roberts, George Eliot ( Middlemarch) is Mary Ann Evans, James Tiptree is Alice Bradley Sheldon. It’s part of the reason I decided to put together the anthology, The Lineup: 20 Provocative Women Writers. There are still quite a few editors out there (usually straight white men) who feel that women can’t write “X” genre-be it horror or science fiction or crime. There are a lot of judgmental people out there, and they may not have your best interests at heart.Īnother thing I’ve seen over the years is women taking a pseudonym in order to avoid gender bias. I can see wanting to keep your day job and writing career separate from one other. You might not lean into extremes like erotica or brutal horror, but maybe you work in an industry-teaching, politics, your local church-where you don’t want people reading your speculative fiction or your gritty thrillers. For you, this might be something you want to keep separate from your true identity. I have written some truly horrific things over the years-not just violence, but transgressive fiction that included rape, molestation, and other unsettling elements. But maybe you do write some pretty gnarly horror-splatterpunk, or gory vengeance horror, or something else that you want to keep away from people who might judge you harshly for it. So, you don’t write tentacle porn, no worries. In the introduction to my novel, "Breaker", I thanked my mother for her support and then BEGGED her to please put the book down and stop reading.
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