Pub Talks: To Pen-Name or Not to Pen-Name

Should You Go Incognito in Your Writing Career?

Authors often choose to use pen names for various reasons, ranging from personal to professional considerations. Even authors you may not know, have pen names: Cassandra Clare, Sophie Kinsella, Meg Shaffer, J. Bree, and even Julia Quinn.

Most of us don’t even know that isn’t who they are which almost seems kind of writerly magic.

So many authors have talked about their journey to pen name or not to pen name as well.

Most recently, Victoria Aveyard, author of Red Queen, spoke on TikTok about how she reconsidered writing under her own name. She said she wished she might’ve gone with a pen name when she first started writing for safety and separation reasons and she has felt light freedom since changing her last name legally, but not on her books, post-marriage.

On my writing journey, I went back and forth on whether or not I should write under a pen name or not. Or if it even really mattered.

Still, I question the decision of whether it is better to write under my own name vs. a fake one. There are so many reasons one way or another from copyright reasons to simply wanting to be remembered.

But it is a choice when you decide to publish that you have to make, and once you make it, you often can’t change that choice—only build from it.

So why would someone choose to have a pen name over their actual name on the front covers of the novels they worked hours over to produce and get credit for?

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