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Posted by loxocele on 2008-11-25 02:04:36 +0000

pseudononymous

ok, question: a friend of mine from college is starting a journal, and i'm thinking of submitting something for the inaugural issue. the problem is as follows: the piece would be one of those terrible memoir pieces that are so in vogue these days, and there are people in that story who a) aren't me, one of whom b) is still a good friend of mine (whose privacy i respect and would want to protect, and whose identity could be determined from the story by a few people if my name were on it). because of this, i'm strongly considering submitting under a pseudonym. questions are as follows: 1) how sketchy is it to list things on your CV that you published under a pseudonym? 2) wtf do i pseudoname myself? i'm thinking something that actually sounds like a person's first/middle/last name, and preferably something sneakily but obscurely based on my own actual name (so that people in the know could laugh and feel clever and stuff). 3) on the other hand, is it more important to publish under my own name in case this journal gets some attention someday, in which case i have to call my friend and ask if he minds, and just cross my fingers that the one person in the world i wouldn't want to read it never googles me and finds it? 4) or back to the first hand, since i'll inevitably end up publishing academic stuff in the next few years as well, should i just take this opportunity to start putting my creative/non-academic writing out there under a different identity and keep them both permanently separate? thoughts and advice greatly appreciated. :)

Posted by pchippy on 2008-11-25 09:17:30 +0000
When you attach a fake name to your writing, it's not a "pseudonym," it's a "pen name"--or even a "nom de plume" if you want to be insufferably pretentious about it. Doesn't that sound less sinister than "pseudonym" to you? Having a pen name is perfectly respectable for a creative writer: George Sand George Eliot Lewis Carroll Mark Twain George Orwell Saki O. Henry James Herriot Pablo Neruda So my vote is for your option number 4.

Posted by virtue on 2008-11-25 10:19:28 +0000
I think your pen name should be George Lox.

Posted by mahatma chani on 2008-11-25 11:07:33 +0000
If you think there is even the possibility of anything in the published material coming back to haunt you, go option 4.

Posted by G lib on 2008-11-25 11:50:12 +0000
seconded.

Posted by loxocele on 2008-11-25 14:17:39 +0000
for the most part, no - not with this piece (who knows what else i'll end up submitting in a more creative vein) - but i'm notoriously bad at being able to anticipate this kind of thing. good point, thank you.

Posted by loxocele on 2008-11-25 14:20:34 +0000
ooooh. anyone have a three names version, so my artist alter ego can be as obnoxiously pretentious as my academic self? (perhaps a middle name that marks me as female without being too femme-y?)

Posted by tgl on 2008-11-25 14:21:00 +0000
Take it from Lee Bronson. . . . Has anyone seen MC and Lee Bronson together? Nope.

Posted by loxocele on 2008-11-25 14:21:49 +0000
a very good point, thank you. :) somehow i knew all of those except pablo neruda - what was the name he was born with, do you know?

Posted by mahatma chani on 2008-11-25 14:38:49 +0000
Tready lightly! (Speaking from someone who professionally uses all three names himself)

Posted by pchippy on 2008-11-25 14:45:34 +0000
Wikipedia tells me he was born as "NeftalĂ­ Ricardo Reyes Basoalto."

Posted by G lib on 2008-11-25 14:49:24 +0000
Tread lightly! (speaking from someone who only has two names)

Posted by TheFullCleveland on 2008-11-25 15:08:39 +0000
George Fawn Lox.

Posted by dyedon8 on 2008-11-25 17:44:57 +0000
Tread lightly! (Speaking from someone who has a middle initial.)

Posted by dyedon8 on 2008-11-25 17:45:53 +0000
Bose Lox.

Posted by loxocele on 2008-11-26 08:00:36 +0000
ok, seriously? nothing makes my skin crawl in quite the same way as having my @%&!ing name truncated. i've even reduced it to a semi-pithy soundbite - "i go by one or three names, but never two" (meaning, if you need to talk to me, please just use one - but if it's a remotely formal or professional context [or a written-in-text one], then three are in order) - and so many people just fail to get it. i've tried telling people i just have two first names; i've even considered retroactively hyphenating (though that's not right for me, i'm just not hyphenated) - but no, most the world seems totally content to smush all of us into Firstname Lastname only land. thing is, i never thought my name suited me - at all - until i started going by the entire thing almost a decade ago....

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