8 Comments

Dear Parker

it's a great name and obvious to anyone (well it was to me) that it's a pen name. (Tribute to crime writer Robert B Parker? Probably not.) But there's a great anecdote about Isaac Asimov (maybe you already heard it, sorry...) when he first submitted, they said you'll never get anywhere with a wierd name like that, give yourself a pen name. He didn't of course. Then, after he was successful, people said what a great name, however did you come up with that one, what's your real name by the way?

In the UK you could open a bank account "Jaspar Jonquiltonks trading as Parker Peeveyhouse". Or just open a business account called 'Parker Peeveyhouse'.

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This is so interesting! I’ve thought about using a pen name, but my reason against it is so specific and kinda silly. I go by Katie, but it’s a nickname of my middle name, not my first name. I’ve fought my whole life to get people to call me Katie and not my first name, so now I don’t want to give it up! But I also feel like Katie is too cutesy, not fancy enough for adult fantasy 😅

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Katie is a great name! You could also go with Kate? So many people I know go by their middle name and I understand the struggle to get people to use it!

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I use a pen name and I love it. While I am not published yet, I have found having an identity for my writing to be super helpful. My pen name is basically just the first letter of my actual name and my stepdad's last name (a name I have wished to have since I was 13)☺️

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I love the name Z King! And it would be easy to have people call you Z or by your full first name.

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Thank you!☺️

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Thanks for sharing all this. It's fascinating! I once met a popular writer who confessed to me over drinks that he used a pen name, but only for his surname. That way it gave him some privacy, but it was easy for people to call him by his first name.

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I know a lot of writers who do this. It definitely cuts down on some of the confusion but doesn’t eliminate all the problems.

A lot of women use their first name but replace their last name with their middle name. I hate that trend, though. It always sounds so weird to me.

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