Nom de Plume...

...a.k.a. pen name a.k.a. pseudonym a.k.a. literary double a.k.a. alias.

Do not be concerned, I am not talking about this Halloween costume supply shop.

I'm talking about the custom of a person who was born with one name adopting another (or several other) names under which to publish their books.

This was, and still is, a common practice among writers for various reasons. At one time (think at least two hundred years ago), female authors often used male pen names, fearing no one would read their books if they knew the author was a woman. In more contemporary times, authors who are established in one genre and want to break into another genre, may use a pen name so readers don't make a judgment based on what they've previously written. 

AbeBooks has written a great post on their website, showcasing the books of many talented writers that wrote under a name different from their original. Of course they mention the classics like Mark Twain (actually Samuel Langhorne Clemens), and for me, Nora Roberts, who is also well-known for writing as J.D. Robb.

I remember how shocking it was for me to find out Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb were the same person. (Okay, shocking may have been an overstatement, but I was surprised.) Do you remember any "big reveals" in your life?


Some of the authors who immediately come to mind (who use pen names) are children's book authors like R.L. LaFevers (real first name - Robin) and E. Lockhart (the E stands for Emily, but her real last name is Jenkins). I don't know why R.L. LaFevers writes under that name, but E. Lockhart writes on her website:  

"What does E stand for? What’s your real name? And why do you go by E?
E. stands for Emily, and I use it on my teen books because I write other kinds of books using my whole, legal name. My dad calls me E., and I always liked it."

As we new writers look into getting published, I think it's a legitimate question to ask ourselves - do we want to write under our own legal names or not? If you decide you do, but can't decide on a name, this handy dandy Pen Name Generator website will create one for you.

Mine is apparently Cindy Capleton. What's yours?

Welcome to September!

Hi All.....
I just sent a blog invite to Nancy, and as soon as she answers the invite we will all be Guinea Pig bloggers!
time to make a plan for a weekly? monthly? meet up at the hangout in Hadley. What do you think?
S

Lane Smith & Molly Leach

The world of picture book design is a mysterious and wonderful place. I recently found a video about the dynamic duo of picture book creation, husband and wife team - Molly Leach and Lane Smith. Complimenting nicely the Horn Book Magazine article, Design Matters, this video lets the viewer in a little further on the design process of picture books. Bonus: You also get to see snippets of their lovely home offices.



Makes me really wish I had snapped up a copy of The Happy Hocky Family before it went out of print.

Thanks to Fuse #8 for the video link.

Also, on a sidenote for any Lane Smith fans, check out his blog, Curious Pages. It's tagline states: "recommended inappropriate books for kids TM" and has hilarious commentary on classic children's books. I unearthed a copy of Elizabite by H.A. Rey in a used bookstore and was cracking up reading it, thinking "How could I have made it this far in life without seeing this book?" I am so happy to know, I am not alone.

What Anne Carroll Moore Always Wanted?

I grew up in a small town with a small library. It was dark and crowded, full of shelf upon shelf of old books with one-color cloth covers, names embossed in gold and worn off so you had to read the title page if you wanted to know what you'd found. The pages were thin, usually spotted brown in places, and they smelled musty and delicious. To me, each one was a forgotten treasure: I discovered E. Nesbit, Edward Eager, Elizabeth Enright, and L. M. Boston on those shelves, and for years believed that I was the only one who had read the secrets of the Psammead and the Natterjack, Gone-Away Lake and Green Knowe.

Every spring, this library has a fundraising book sale. Every available surface is covered with old donated books and signs that read "Fill a bag for $1!" My mother went this year around the time of my graduation from Simmons with an MFA in Writing for Children and looked for children's books that might be of interest to me. She found one, complete with its own sign:

She put the book in her closet to give to me as a graduation gift, and lost it until yesterday when she cleaned out the closet.

The dust jacket is missing, the binding is beginning to unbind, and the front matter has turned the color of a nicely-toasted marshmallow, but it's absolutely beautiful. I delighted in reading the original first line on one of the original first pages: "When Mrs. Frederick C. Little's second son was born, everybody noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse." Two days after the book was released, Harold Ross, founder of The New Yorker, read that line and told White he had made "one serious mistake." Jill Lepore recounts their conversation in her article "The Lion and the Mouse: The battle that reshaped children's literature." Apparently, Ross shouted at White, "You said [Stuart] was born. God damn it, White, you should have had him adopted!" White heeded his boss and in later editions changed Stuart's first appearance from "born" to "arrived."

Lepore's article is worth a read for more than just that anecdote. It spares no detail of the drama surrounding Stuart Little, Anne Carroll Moore, Ursula Nordstrom, and E.B. and Katherine White in the 1930s and 40s. E.B. White had written an article in 1938 that called writing for children "easy work," and Anne Carroll Moore, then Superintendent of the Department of Work with Children at the New York Public Library, replied with "I wish to goodness you would do a real children's book yourself." By the time White's first manuscript was ready to submit to legendary Harper children's editor Nordstrom in 1945, Moore had been retired for four years. In typical Moore-ish fashion, though, she felt that it was more her book than anyone else's and insisted on seeing a copy before its release. Nordstrom begrudgingly sent a galley...and Moore utterly despised it. She hated it so much she sent a fourteen-page letter to the Whites, had a closed-door meeting with Nordstrom about pulling it from the Harper list, and ordered Frances Clarke Sayers, her successor at the NYPL, not to buy the book for the library. (Sayers did buy a copy, but she kept it hidden under her desk.)

Despite Moore's best intentions, Stuart Little had a first print run of 50,000 copies, sold 100,000 copies in just three months, and has now sold over four million copies. After all of her work to keep it out of libraries and schools, Anne Carroll Moore is probably rolling in her grave to think that someone took a copy of Stuart Little out of a dump, brought it inside a library, and got it into the hands of a third-grade teacher. But now, just like Stuart at the end of his book, he is finally "headed in the right direction."

--Emily

Repost: The "Good Guys" of YA Literature

This is a "repost", similar to a "retweet" on Twitter (follow me @rebf). Emily's Reading Room had an inspiring post recognizing the "good guys" of young adult fiction, as opposed to those moody, smoldering, dangerous "bad boys" everyone seems to fall for.

Some of Emily's top favorites included Gilbert Blythe from L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, Mr. Darcy from Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, Laurie from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, and Peeta from Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games.

Obviously this made me question who my own top "good guys" of YA lit are, and these are a few names I came up with:

1. Philip Ammon from Gene Stratton-Porter's A Girl of the Limberlost, one of my top 5, all-time, desert island, favorite books. He's engaged to Edith, but he tries so hard to be a good guy and do the right thing to be worthy of loving Elnora. And of course, if I'm thinking of Philip, I have to put in Freckles, the title character from GSP's Freckles, and the Harvester, the title character from GSP's The Harvester. Really, all of her men are worthy "good guys".

2. Bookish Mac over fast and lose Charlie in Louisa May Alcott's Eight Cousins and A Rose in Bloom finally wins Rose's much-deserved love. And yes, I have a soft spot, in part, due to his bookish nature.

3. T. C. Keller from My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kruger. He loves baseball, has a great relationship with his dad, recites a standing address at the high school talent show to impress the girl, and he's cute to boot.

4. Poor Arthur Dent in A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. He didn't know what hit him when his planet was blown up, and he's dragged back and forth between one end of the universe to the other. What a relief when he finds a love interest. He deserves it after being such a good sport.

Who are your favorite good guys?

-Rebecca

Click here to view this post, and others, on my personal blog.

"The Old Country" by Mordicai Gerstein

I just finished this fable, fairy tale, 20th c history, and loved the language, and Gerstein's ability to weave so many worlds. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Middle grade, but adults would love it too. I think the picture book, called A BOOK that he created in 2009, has a bit of this flavor too.....

The Old Country
Mordicai Gerstein
Roaring Brook Press
Grades 4 - 12

Starred review in April 18, 2005 issue of Publishers Weekly
*Gerstein (The Man Who Walked Between the Towers) skillfully shapes a story by turns disturbing and comforting. His hybrid of fantasy and fable explores such themes as human nature, war, magic and music.

The tale within a tale opens as Gisella visits her great granddaughter, gives her a present and shares a story of her childhood in The Old Country, where, she says, "I was a little girl and where I was a fox." Gisella builds on this note of intrigue , as she describes her wise great-aunt warning her that in the woods "things may not be what they seem.

Things change; now it's this, then it's that. Look closely, be careful, and never look too long into the eyes of a fox." Indeed, danger befalls the young Gisella when her brother is drafted into the army, and it's up to her to kill the fox who's been stealing the family chickens. Deep in the woods, strange things occur--talking animals and "small people."

The girl finds herself gazing intently into the fox's eyes, and the two mysteriously exchange bodies. Meanwhile, war breaks out ("Air that had been full of springtime now had a new odor, bitter and jagged. It was the smell of pain, and it was everywhere"), sending Gisella on a labyrinthine journey with a forest sprite as her guide.

Gerstein brilliantly ties the war's escalations with the dwindling of magic, and caps off this vividly descriptive narrative with an unexpected ending.
Ages 11-14. (May)

Way to GO! GUINEA PIGS!!