Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Pen Names and When to Admit Them

Holding a Ruling Pen.
a ruling pen_Image via Wikipedia
In the middle of writing the draft for the second blog installment of a short story effort called The Visitor,  it's time to mention that Alec Powers is a pen name.

Mark Twain, one of the most familiar pen names, may have been writing for quite a while before he owned up to being Samuel Clemens. Would we prefer that he had used his real name? I doubt it. 

Alec Powers is the second pen name I have used. Jane Bullard was the first, for Not All Roads Lead Home. I have written a few times about why I chose to write my first book as Jane, not publicizing that it was I who was the author. Using a pen name does not require giving the writer's real name

In this age when many authors do not use pens, but choose word processing, where are the pens involved most of the time? I miss the images of the inkwell and sharpened feather quills, the latter of which inspired pen name as a way to describe a writing name.

Who is surprised to remember that one of my favorite books is Gap Creek written by a man in a woman's voice. When I first read it, I wondered if Robert Morgan  was a pen name for a female author, but it does not appear to be so. He so effectively expressed the speech and patterns of a woman and a woman living in a remote area in the southern U.S.

I'll write more on this blog as I continue to practice the short story, for me a new genre and one of the most challenging.   

(c) 2012 by Author Support blog and Jean, Jane, and Alec

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