Member-only story
New Year, New You, New Pseudonym?
Should you hide who you really are for your next piece of writing?
Notes: This article first appeared in Writing Magazine in January 2016.
My name is Simon Whaley, and that’s the name I write under. Although there was that time when I entered the National Association of Writers’ Groups’ mini-tale competition and I had to use a pseudonym (entries had to be judged anonymously). So, for a couple of hours, I became Milo Swahney.
I used an anagram of my real name on that occasion because when I entered the competition the previous year I’d used my porn-star name. Suffice to say that was memorable for all the wrong reasons, and I had to come up with something different!
One of the most frequently asked questions new writers ask is whether they should use a pseudonym. It’s as though getting the right author name is more important than writing something in the first place. Many get hung up on the myths and mysteries of why certain writers chose to write under specific names.
Did JK Rowling use initials, to hide her gender? Did JK Rowling write her Cormorant Strike novels under the name of Robert Galbraith to separate them from her Harry Potter novels? There are many reasons why writers use pseudonyms, but the best reasons are when there’s a clear…
