Today, for their Road Trip Wednesday feature, YA Highway asked: If you couldn’t use your own name, what would your pseudonym or penname be?
This is a question that, due to my own over-thinking about branding and the future, I’ve already dealt with in small ways.
My original penname was just my full name, ‘Emma Maree Urquhart’, but for future books I’m shortening my penname to just ‘Emma Maree’.
It’s short, it’s memorable, it makes a snazzy URL, it’s easier to spell and pronounce than ‘Urquhart’ (Urk-hart), and it helps avoid any fussing about if I ever have to change my maiden name.
I wouldn’t mind trying out a brand new name if I ever had to write anonymously, it would be kind of fun to create a new identity from the ground up. I think it would have to have either a nice ring to it, or a subtle pun there somewhere – most of my favorite pseudonyms do (Frank Quitely, for instance).
EDIT: Thanks to the lovely Colin in the comments, I’ve now decided my super-anonymous(/gender neutral) pseudonym is: M. Amaree. :D Ta-da!