1 Question With 15-ish Authors

For the World Book Day, I ask the beloved authors a question that has been on my mind ever since I started reading sapphic fiction. In fact, every time I pick up a book by a new-to-me-author, I always wonder about this question. Call it a quick of mine.

Here goes:

Why did you pick your pen name?

Jae

Here's the story of my pen name: When I published my first novel, I was still working as a psychologist for a big company, and my bosses didn't want my clients to be able to google me and find out I write romances between women, so I knew I would have to publish under a pen name. Since I had already posted some fanfiction under the name Jae, my publisher at the time (Roxanne from L-Book) suggested I go with that. I picked the name Jae after one of the main characters in "Silent Legacy" (also known as "Glass Houses") by Ciaran Llachlan Leavitt, one of the first sapphic romances I ever read. It didn't occur to me to pick a last name, so in the tradition of Madonna and Cher, I went with just Jae. By the way, in Germany, it's possible to have an "artist name" in your ID and your passport, so Jae is now legally my name too.


Roslyn Sinclair

My pen name is based on 2 female characters I’ve loved: Laura Roslin from Battlestar Galactica (although I changed the spelling), who stole and then broke my heart. The second is Cecily Sinclair, MC in a cozy mystery series I loved in high school!

The writer of said mystery series was actually really seeet to baby fan me—I wrote her actual snail mail letters back in the day, and later we friended each other on Facebook. And, yes, before I knew what I was writing and that you shouldn’t tell the creators about it, I sent her fanfiction. She told me it was very good and was super kind. So it feels very right to bring a piece of that into a writing career where I transform my fic into published work!


Isis Brown

The less exciting answer is that I work in a really politicized environment and wanted/needed anonymity so I could exist in this space without having to watch my words. I chose Isis because it was a way of honoring my ancestors, and doing a bit of reclaiming. Isis is an ancient Egyptian goddess with a rich history of being so much to so many people for thousands of years. Loyal, and protective, she’s also described as being the “bringer of magic” and isn’t that what we all hope to do a little bit as we weave our stories? I chose the last name Brown because it’s so important to me to center stories of BIPOC folks, both in name and practice. Choosing that as a last name is a tie in for me to remember why I’m here, and my dedication to helping us all connect.


Kris Bryant

One of the best days of my life was when I received an email from Bold Strokes Books saying they wanted to give me a contract for my first book Jolt. In all the paperwork, they asked if I wanted to use a pen name. I never thought that I would get a contract so I never thought about using a different name, but I live in the Midwest and for an extremely conservative engineering firm. One of my co-workers was like “you can use my last name” but her last name is Williams and Kris Williams is too close to Chris Williamson so I nixed it. I called up my girlfriend and asked her if I could use her last name because why wouldn’t that be a good idea, right?!? And I had to stick with Kris because I knew I’d never answer to anything else. I have a nickname that I do answer to, Daisy, but Daisy Bryant, doesn’t scream steamy romance. Little did I know there was an up-and-coming baseball player with the same name. So now I get fan mail asking me to sign baseballs, jerseys, propose to people, give video shoutouts to others and I have to wonder – does he get requests for signed lesfic books?

Voilet Morley

Finding Violet was definitely a process. I started with a completely different name. I went with one that matched my initials, set up an email and social media, and everything—except I kept forgetting how I spelled it. So, that one was out, and like all good ideas, this one came from my wife. We were throwing suggestions out there that would go with the last name, Morley, which we had already landed on, and my wife mentioned Violet. I didn’t really like it at first, but my wife has this ability to know when something is a good idea, and she just sat back while I threw out more names. Nothing fit, so I sat on Violet longer and started seeing what she meant. And thus, Violet was born.


Quinn Ivins

Ivins is an homage to Molly Ivins, a sassy political columnist I loved as a kid. Quinn comes from Quinn Morgendorffer, the true hero of MTV’s Daria. Quinn once said, “You too can have bouncy hair, if you just take the time to bounce from the inside as well."


Barbara Winkes

I write most of my books under my own name. Getting published was the ultimate dream come true, and I wanted to go all in. I have no regrets, though when I considered writing stories with a higher heat level than before, I decided a pen name would work better for that. I also realized over time that my highly introverted self benefited from taking a step back. It allowed me to take a breath and meanwhile, get a new perspective on branding and marketing. But in the end, it’s all about creating characters and their stories, and hoping they will resonate with readers. 


Chelsea Cameron

I chose my name because it’s my real name. I thought about doing a pen name, but I was afraid I’d slip up and forget. I’m in awe of authors who keep track of multiple names!


Rachel Lacey

The inspiration for my pen name is two-part. First, my sister is also an author. She lived with me for a year while we were in our twenties, and while we were roommates, she wrote a book on my computer with a heroine named Lacey. Somehow, my computer ate the whole story! It was never recovered. But...Lacey was an important character to my sister, and it was a subtle way for me to honor how important my sister is to me.

The second - and primary - reason for my pen name is...my dog. Yes, I took my dog's name as my pen name. Lacy was still alive when I chose the name, but she was an old lady by then, and I knew she wouldn't be around for most of my career (if you've been following me since the beginning, though, you may remember her!) She's been gone about 4 years now. Have you ever had that one pet that you just knew was your animal soulmate? Lacy was that for me. I loved that girl with my whole heart, and I'm so glad we will always have this connection.


Emma Nichols

I went with Emma because funnily enough I used to get called Emma a lot. My surname in real life is Emms so many people translated that into Emma that it stuck.

I went with Nichols because it went well with Emma, however, in my naivety I didn’t check to see if there were other authors of the same name. In fact, there is one other. She writes heterosexual erotica! Needless to say I have had a few problems with people mistaking her work for mine and thinking I write in both genres. She emailed me once, a couple of years back, with a tirade of abusive about me choosing the same name as her because all her homo-phobic friends from high-school gave her a hard time for the fact that when they searched for her my work hit them in the face. I also have had major problems with Goodreads because I have to reclaim my books from her every time they go live in Amazon, because the link goes straight through to her account. I’ve even thought of putting a letter between the first name and surname just to stop the problem! So, lesson is, do your research before settling on a name.


Johana Gavez

Choosing a pen name was something I took seriously when I published my first book. I wanted something easy to recognize, unique enough that I didn’t get mixed up with other writers and that allowed me to claim the website and social media handles for it. Most of all, I wanted a pen name that felt like me. My last name is an extremely common Hispanic last name, so it wasn’t unique enough, and that’s when the search began.

As is the custom in Latin and Hispanic countries, I have two names and two last names. Traditionally, the first last name is the father’s family name and the second last name is the mother’s family name, but we recently had a new law approved in Colombia that now allows people to choose the order they prefer for the last names. So I started my search by trying different combinations of my first and middle name with my two last names. I also mixed it up with the last names of significant people in my life.

In the end, what I did was create a portmanteau of my two last names and I kept my first name. Gavez was perfect because it was unique like I wanted and I think it shows my Hispanic heritage too. It represents me and it sounds cool. I love it. That’s how Johana Gavez was born.


Jamey Moody

My sister suggested I use my nephew's name as my pen name. He was gay, just like me, and I hope I was a help to him while coming out. Unfortunately, he was killed when he was just twenty-two. I miss him so, but he will always be frozen in time as the beautiful gay man he'd become.


Monica McCallan

I picked my real first name to use because I don't have the mental bandwidth to respond to anything except "Monica" at this point in my life. As for my last name... it's not actually a real name! I love whiskey (Macallan) but I didn't want to pick that name since it'd make searching for me darn near impossible. So I went with an alternate spelling that made it more Irish than Scottish for search-ability.

Haley Cass

If I told you why I chose Haley Cass, I'd have to kill you. All right - it's the name of the person I killed in Vegas just to watch them die. ... okay, maybe it's neither of those things. The truth is that my pen name is marginally less creative than most; it's a close variant of my real name. The thing is, though, that growing my up I hated my name. It was boring, it was common, parts of my middle name were weird. As an adult, I've learned to love it and myself a lot more. Enough that when I see it mentioned anywhere in this community, it makes me proud to know that - that's me!

Lucy Bexley

I chose Lucy for my pen name because it's a nickname my dad called me when I was little, so now when people call me it, I feel loved. And also, I answer to it, which felt important! Bexley is also loosely based on a childhood nickname. Even now about half my family refers to me as Mrs. Beasley, but it all started with my stepdad.

Nicknames are very important to me, if I give you a nickname I love you very much.

(Interviewer’s note: Lucy has several nicknames for me, so I feel all sorts of warm and fuzzy about this fact.)


Happy World Book Day to you all! Thank you for being amazing and for all the support you provide to your favorite sapphic fiction authors.

If you’re wondering what the best Book Day gift is for an author - the answer to this one is simple because it is always the same answer - reviews! Leave a review on a book you’ve enjoyed and make an author’s day!

Sending much love!


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