On the Medium log, Harris Sockel wrote, “Why now might be the perfect time to try writing under a nom de plume.”
“Two of my good friends write under pen names. They do this for many reasons. Some are practical: They have relatively high-profile day jobs and want to maintain professional Google search results.” That would be a legitimate consideration for some. But I never had a high-profile job, although some of you may disagree.
I am fascinated when a big-time author uses a pen name. Famously, Stephen King wrote under the name Richard Bachman. The story: “At the beginning of King’s career, the general view among publishers was that an author was limited to one book per year, since publishing more would be unacceptable to the public. King wanted to write under another name to increase his publication without saturating the market for the King ‘brand.’ He convinced his publisher, Signet Books, to print these novels under a pseudonym.”
Sockel notes: “Others are spiritual: When they write, they want to feel like someone else. They want to feel free. They don’t want to be weighed down by their work persona when they’re writing something deeply personal.” This is an interesting idea.
However, my writing before this blog was generally tied to my work situation: newsletters for the Schenectady Arts Council and the New York Small Business Development Center. Also, I did some writing/editing for FantaCo.
Chronicles
The only time I used a pen name was when I created an index of appearances of the X-Men or the individual members in the X-Men Chronicles for FantaCo. I wrote that under the name Arro Verti. It was probably apparent to most people that this was me, yes? Arro for R.O. (Roger Owen) and Verti is a variation of vert, meaning green.
At this point, whatever I write will be me writing as me unless it becomes too dangerous. Sockel: “Heath Brown, associate professor of public policy at CUNY, mentions Madame Restell, a 19th-century physician who sold abortion medication under a pseudonym. Brown makes the case for using a pen name to express your potentially contentious ideas during polarizing moments in history (like, maybe, right now).
“The U.S. founders declared independence under a collective pen name, too: ‘Hamilton, Madison, and Jay… wrote many of the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym Publius, the name of one of the founders of the Roman Republic.'” I’m an old poli sci major; I knew that.
Finally, the piece links to a pen name generator. It recommended for a male, starting with R, Randall Martin (English- boring), Rashaad Saadeh (Arabic), Roul Blaise (French), Reto Wolf (German), Rajesh Padmanabhan (Hindi), Rufino Insigne (Italian), Ryo Ishimoto (Japanese), Ryung So (Korean), Ru Luo (Mandarin Chinese), Reinaldo Mancillas (Spanish), and Rashidi Adeoye (Swahili). But if I didn’t like those, I could pick others.
