Craft Notes
Fear and Bravery of Pseudonyms
At the AWP bookfair, Michael Kimball showed me a copy of this pretty little book, Normally Special, by a writer called xTx. I asked Michael something like, “what’s the deal with the name?” He said she was a writer who publishes stuff under her real name, but also uses this pseudonym when she writes stuff she doesn’t want her family to read or kids to read. I asked Michael if anyone knew who the writer was and he said maybe Roxane Gay, since she had published the book, but maybe nobody else knew. “I don’t think I’d want to read any of that other stuff anyway,” he said.
Tiny back story: When I was twelve or thirteen I learned how to code HTML so I could build websites. It was 1999 and compared to now, the internet was pretty barren place. I built a website for my church’s Youth Group because I was really into that kind of thing, a fan site for Sheryl Crow because I was really into her first two albums, and I published my own stories on a Geocities page because I wanted someone to read things I’d written, just so long as I didn’t have to answer to it.
Another story: A few years ago, a mentor of mine from New Orleans came to visit New York and we had coffee. He was the one who got me to move to New York in the first place, the one who told me to go to grad school, the one who made me excited about creative nonfiction. He published a very autobiographical novel about his childhood in Louisiana and told me his mother had a hard time with the way the mother character was represented in the book. Over our coffee, he asked me what I was working on and I said, somewhat embarrassed, that I was working on a memoir. He asked me if my family knew and I said not really and he said, “Don’t talk to them about it until it’s done. They’ll change your memories, they’ll change your story without even trying.” (A loose quote, of course, but you get the picture.) Most importantly, he told me, You can’t write a good story if you’re worried about what someone is going to think about it, if you’re worried about hurting someone’s feelings.
I was about 23 when he told me that, and I knew it was important, but it took a year for this to sink in. I wrote a first draft of a book that was filled with worry about what different people would think about it. I ended up throwing the whole thing away.
So. When Michael said he wouldn’t want to read anything that xTx wrote under her real name (I’m assuming xTx is female), I was reminded of this earlier lesson, the trashed memoir and my lost Geocities site. I’m not sure (but I could guess) what the thirteen-year-old me was writing about or why she didn’t want anyone in her life to read it. But I know precisely what kind of writing happens when you’re worried about someone else’s feelings or about what people will think of you.
Bravery is essential to all writing, but of course it gets complicated if there is a legitimate peril in that writer’s life. I don’t know what the whole story is with xTx, but it’s plausible that there is some kind of real threat in her life and that if certain people she knows read Normally Special, she might be put in some real danger.
Or maybe that’s just what I want to believe. Normally Special knocked the breath out of me several times and I would hate to think that someone in my own life could have this kind of talent and stories in her, and keep them from me. Hurting someone’s feelings by speaking the truth, whether it’s your husband’s, your mother’s, or your friends’ feelings, isn’t reason enough to hide your writing. Though it’s hard (and I know because I still haven’t given my full manuscript to anyone other than my agent and the prospective agents before her) in the end, I believe that it’s worth it. As for a thirteen-year-old’s juvenilia, well, maybe that’s better left on an unmarked Geocities page.
Update: Sorry to upset anyone about this. I feel like I was a little unclear and some things got misconstrued here, so I’d like to quickly add something. Of course everyone is free to write whatever they want under whatever names they want. I am merely wondering what happens when anyone separates a strand of their writing from the rest of their writing– what would be the motivations behind that? Self-protection? A feeling of freedom? Both? Neither? Speculating if maybe a writer was abused or has some kind of pain in their past that has motivated them to use a pseudonym so they can protect themselves and their family in the present– to me that is not shit talking at all. Just the opposite. I have things in my past that have seeped into my writing (fiction or non) that I know people who know me will read and recognize and be hurt by in some way. That’s life. I’ve wondered about using a pseudonym. I continue to wonder. I was just trying to get a dialogue started about it. I am certainly not trying to shit-talk xtx, and I probably should have been more sensitive about the way I wrote that post. Really sorry to have upset anyone by this. That wasn’t my intention at all.
Tags: xtx
Sam Lipsyte’s advice to me (and surely others) was to write what you are afraid of and what you are afraid of showing others. The stories where you are letting others see what your eye gazes intently on, that’s where the real stuff is. So I can see why Michael wouldn’t want to read the safer work.
The idea of using a pen name to write the darker stuff is interesting to me because I’ve only ever used pen names when publishing or trying to publish stuff I felt was not as serious. But I can certainly see why someone might need to do so, for reasons you list.
Sam Lipsyte’s advice to me (and surely others) was to write what you are afraid of and what you are afraid of showing others. The stories where you are letting others see what your eye gazes intently on, that’s where the real stuff is. So I can see why Michael wouldn’t want to read the safer work.
The idea of using a pen name to write the darker stuff is interesting to me because I’ve only ever used pen names when publishing or trying to publish stuff I felt was not as serious. But I can certainly see why someone might need to do so, for reasons you list.
the only reason i’ve thought about using a pseudonym is that daniel bailey is god-awfully generic name. i might start publishing under the name malcolm x lightning bolt.
This is a great article, Catherine. Ever since I started getting to know xTx, I’ve always wondered how many people in her “real life” know about her writing. I would hope her immediate family and close friends at least know she’s passionate about it, even if they are unaware of her success. I hope she gets a lot of support from her “real life” relationships, that it’s not just online usernames cheering her on.
I think I feel this way because of what you said in your article: “…I would hate to think that someone in my own life could have this kind of talent and stories in her, and keep them from me.”
Very well said, Catherine.
I do, indeed, know who xTx is. I’m not the only one. She was at AWP. Her reasons for writing pseudonymously are her own. Lots of people use pseudonyms for lots of different reasons. I write using pseudonyms. It’s not really a secret. When asked if I am X, I answer truthfully. (I am not xTx or Sugar, which is what I get asked the most.) One of my pseudonyms isn’t even so much a pseudonym. I mostly just try to game Google so that if my parents, god forbid, were to Google my name, none of my pseudonymous writing would show up. When I started, I did it because my family is super conservative, and our culture is super conservative, and I enjoy my relationship with my family. It was a respect thing and I’m sure part of it was just being afraid of what they would think. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve written more under my own name because you do reach an age where it doesn’t matter as much or where I simply don’t care as much and I kind of felt like I was writing some pretty cool things and wanted to take credit for that. For me, the bravery is more in the writing itself rather than how a writer claims that writing.
god-awfully generic? I’m Pete Smith. Never have I ever been in a class, meeting, forum or any sort of attendance list without the facilitator getting to my name and saying, “here’s an easy one.”
i have a friend who when he was a kid would only answer to the name Star Laser for roughly a year
Some people also have jobs that pay well and give great benefits, but you would rather they not run a Google search and turn up some of the stuff you’ve written. Not because you would be fired really, but because you want to keep your work life separate from your creative life. Sometimes the reason for a pseudonym is as boring as that.
Some people also have jobs that pay well and give great benefits, but you would rather they not run a Google search and turn up some of the stuff you’ve written. Not because you would be fired really, but because you want to keep your work life separate from your creative life. Sometimes the reason for a pseudonym is as boring as that.
“Hurting someone’s feelings … isn’t reason enough to hide your writing.” ????????? F-in soapbox.
Maybe her #1 priority in life is not to hurt the people she loves, and nothing else fucking matters after that.
Interesting response. Thanks, or Like.
I would have no idea how to write about my family without absolutely tearing them all new arseholes. And I love my family. But I hate them too. But none of them want to read about me hating them, no matter how much I ‘can explain’.
amen
So far, I’ve been pretty well relying on the fact that most of my family seem to be allergic to the internet. We’ll see how long that lasts.
my dad told me my writing makes him depressed because it’s offensive. i told him to stop reading my writing.
I hear that haha. My family is online but they are pretty AOL focused and use the Internet for shopping, news, and medical advice. My brothers just don’t give a shit. I hope this continues for, well, forever.
I’ll never forget the shock I felt when I learned that PHM was really Marcus Speh.
I’ll never forget the shock I felt when I learned that PHM was really Marcus Speh.
I hear you– I don’t think I was clear enough about xTx’s writing or what I feel like honesty is. I don’t mean writing something like “I hate my aunt Mary, blah blah blah, she did x and z.”
The stuff that is harder to write is about yourself, what you’ve done or felt. Fiction is all about feelings and moods you have as a person. It can be raw and scary and stuff you just don’t want your family to read— but to me, that’s worth writing, worth reading.
That’s all I mean. Certainly I am not condoning writing mean stuff just for the sake of writing mean stuff. If it doesn’t come from a place of both honesty and compassion, that forget it. I don’t want to touch revenge stories or stories of plain anger.
Also– the main stuff in Normally Special I think xTx may be hiding (and I am just guessing) is that she was maybe abused or molested at some point, maybe by someone in her family. Yeah, her mom might be sad to read about that. It might hurt her mom. …. so…. yeah.
My mom googles me daily and has a twitter set up that has done nothing but post links to my writing. Hi, Mom!
i’ve always found speculation about whether a creative individual was abused or not really uncomfortable
I think it’s not a great thing to speculate about someone’s personal life based on their fiction. Sometimes a story is just a story.
I think people should do what works for them.
Personally I worry a fair amount about most of my family — not my immediate family, which is accustomed to me doing whatever I want by now, but my grandparents and in-laws — seeing what I write. My Grandma is my Facebook friend and the thought of her reading my bodies series, for instance, is terrifying.
Sometimes I do hide Facebook updates with links from family, for instance a heavily autobiographical story I published online, and the elimae piece that briefly discusses my inner thighs and penis.
Picked up Normally Special at the Vouched table at Stories & Beer in Champaign and can’t wait to read it!
allow me to be a jerk for a minute – this post is about seven months too late. speculating about the life of a writer – especially one most of us met at AWP three months ago – is not in good taste.
if you want to bring up something as broad as the fear and bravery of pseudonyms, it shouldn’t stop with commentary on just one writer – xTx should be in this conversation, but so should others who do the same thing. there’s an entire history of people who’ve done this throughout literature – and this post didn’t do much to explore the topic other than to speculate about xTx, drop a name and throw out some sort of vague idea that someone’s life is at stake over what they’re writing.
allow me to be a jerk for a minute – this post is about seven months too late. speculating about the life of a writer – especially one most of us met at AWP three months ago – is not in good taste.
if you want to bring up something as broad as the fear and bravery of pseudonyms, it shouldn’t stop with commentary on just one writer – xTx should be in this conversation, but so should others who do the same thing. there’s an entire history of people who’ve done this throughout literature – and this post didn’t do much to explore the topic other than to speculate about xTx, drop a name and throw out some sort of vague idea that someone’s life is at stake over what they’re writing.
I’ve written under lots of pseudonyms for lots of different reasons. The only pseudonym I really claim is Andy Devine. The rest were mostly for pieces of fiction or poems that are lost in the early days of the internet. But I have friends who write literary fiction under their own name and then young adult novels or books on sailing or books on anything that pays something reasonable under pseudonyms. On a separate point, I’ve written some pretty difficult material under my own name in my fiction. Some people know which parts of that are true and which parts aren’t and, in almost every case, writing that difficult material was liberating for me and for the other people involved.
I’ve written under lots of pseudonyms for lots of different reasons. The only pseudonym I really claim is Andy Devine. The rest were mostly for pieces of fiction or poems that are lost in the early days of the internet. But I have friends who write literary fiction under their own name and then young adult novels or books on sailing or books on anything that pays something reasonable under pseudonyms. On a separate point, I’ve written some pretty difficult material under my own name in my fiction. Some people know which parts of that are true and which parts aren’t and, in almost every case, writing that difficult material was liberating for me and for the other people involved.
I agree, but I am wondering about the reason for the use of the pseudonym; why to separate this work from her other work/ real name.
You’re not being a jerk; good points.
I didn’t meet whomever xtx is. I don’t mean to pick on her (and did I mention this book is really incredible and that everyone should read it?); just wondering about what the motivations behind using a pseudonym would be…
“Also– the main stuff in Normally Special I think xTx may be hiding (and I am just guessing) is that she was maybe abused or molested at some point, maybe by someone in her family.”
Whoa,
What a big fucking assumption. It’s incredibly unfair to take someone’s fiction and pretend that it directly holds the truth about their life. Even if you add a bunch of “maybes” to your sentence.
Edward P. Jones wrote convincingly about prison. Maybe he was locked up for 10 years. I wrote a story about a guy that killed a cop. Maybe I was able to to that because I kill cops on the weekend.
Maybe xTx was molested. Maybe because one of the stories is clearly written by a stalker, she is a stalker. Maybe because that story creeped me out, it was me she was stalking and I should alert the police. Maybe she just made all this shit up off the top of her head. And maybe we should respect her choice to be pseudonymous by not speculating on her life.
from what i understand, xTx is really robert olen butler or else blake butler. i forget which, but i’m pretty sure it’s true.
I have long admired that apotheosis of pseudonyms, “Anonymous.” I like to think of “Anonymous” as a single person with a mythological number of faces and bodies. That the author of “The Cloud of Unknowing” and the more closeted / introverted / magnanimous contemporary writers are one and the same…
really want to jump into the conversation but feeling really weird right now.
Ok, admittedly not that fair of me to speculate, but it’s honestly what I was thinking & I feel like others probably wondered the same thing. Why else divide this writing from the rest of her writing? Seems like the xtx stuff is fearless & brave and full of interesting stuff partially because of the anonymity…
UHM I DON’T KNOW WHAT U GUYS ARE TALKING ABOUT ON THE INTERNET THEY’RE CALLED ‘USERNAMES’
GUYZ U R ALL CONFUSED ON THE INTERNETZ ITS CALLED A ‘USERNAME’ NOT A ‘PSEUDONYM’
“BITCHESBURNINUP” IS MY PSEUDONYM FOR MY REAL NAME WHICH IS BITCHFACE MCFARTYPOOP
the mcfartypoop dynasty would not take kindly to my work
so i had to disguise myself
“BITCHESBURNINUP” IS MY PSEUDONYM FOR MY REAL NAME WHICH IS BITCHFACE MCFARTYPOOP
the mcfartypoop dynasty would not take kindly to my work
so i had to disguise myself
BITCHESBURNINUP, you’re a pretty good example of why some of us prefer “pseudonym” over “username” (besides nodding to literary history). Let’s see, you shouted in caps, were snarky in tone, and left an unhelpful comment. We suspect you of being a frustrated 15-year-old transferring some frustration or another (perhaps lacking a ride to the mall), or else a first-year MFA student in hamfisted love with an Irony of Ironies course, thusly.
WHAT IF I’M SECRETLY AN HTMLGIANT CONTRIBUTOR HRMMMMM?
I COULD BE ANYONE
DON’T JUDGE ME BITCH
WHAT IF I’M SECRETLY AN HTMLGIANT CONTRIBUTOR HRMMMMM?
I COULD BE ANYONE
DON’T JUDGE ME BITCH
Why would that make any difference?
because as far as I know HTMLGiant does not employ 15 year olds
Still not seeing the connection. Anyone can leave a comment here. I just did, and I’m not employed by HTMLGiant. The primary point was that BITCHESBURNINUP’s comments were lame and sidetracking. Yes, it may turn out that Billy Collins actually wrote them. Or some bored intern at HTMLGiant…
MAYHAP I TRULY AM A FIRST-YEAR MFA; PERHAPS WE ARE AT THE SAME SCHOOL WHERE YOU ARE A FIRST-YEAR LIT STUDENT TAKEN TO CLOSE READINGS OF INTERNET COMMENTS IN HOPES OF PWNING POSTERS. WHERE DO YOU GO? WANNA CHILL FOR ST PATTYS
The problem with irony is its omnivorousness, its relentless, its self-satisfaction. Its monotone feints and conceits. Its cuteness!
I’m chill enough to toss back a little Jameson, but only if I can smack that smirk off your face.
GIMME A LIL KISS BABY
this is something i have thought about a lot in regards to trying to publish my own work. i was raised mormon, i have lived most of my life in the most mormon city in the world, and my dad is fanatical to the point of choosing to place a financial burden upon our family so he could continue to pay his tithing, and the pressure i felt from was great. i did not want to not upset my family or entire extended family, but also most everyone i had met before i turned 18. gossip about inactive members is a point of business in bishopric meetings. if anyone read what i wrote it would eventually find its way to my parents. i never sent my work journals or websites, and in fact i have sent my writing only three. the fear of being disowned overwhelmed any wish to be published. but the third piece i sent out was accepted by a website. it’s a nonfiction piece about reading a favorite poem for the first time while on lsd, and i showed it to only a few of my friends. of course i told my family someone had accepted a piece i’d written, but i never showed it to them or described its specifics. had they read it back then i’m sure our already strained relationship could have very well been broken.
Or want to be middle school teachers… in conservative districts… where the jobs may not pay well, but there aren’t many of them either… etc… That’s why I used to publish under a pseudonym. I still worry about it, but then, it’ll probably be years before they start hiring Language Arts teachers again. Le sigh.
Maybe some people just like writing with pseudonyms. You can write under awesome names like xTx and Sugar. Maybe it’s fun to keep people guessing at your identity. I think a good question is why we feel the need to ask why. Another good one: What if there is no why?
Lady Gaga’s real name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta
Lady Gaga’s real name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta
Lady Gaga’s real name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta
Lady Gaga’s real name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta
xTx is probably a fabulous human being, but i admit to not getting into her fiction much. just not my tea, which i think its allowed to have things not be people’s teas and still be tea buds, right? because it doesnt mean one’s tea mug buds aren’t gorgeous. its the same vein as alot of other online writers. i think its because, with the pseudonym and everything, i’m too aware of the catharsis of it, i jump to that that’s the reason she’s hiding (and maybe its wrong to), and i tend to prefer writing where the catharsis is buried, if there at all, because i dont want to feel like im someone’s therapist. a lot of writings on the internet i feel like try to explode the catharsis and it comes off as trying too hard to explode catharses. that’s my feelings!
with THE IGUANA COMPLEX being published, this is the first time i’m feeling really obligated to like tell my family that a literary success is happening, which has been a little strange since i dont consider them an audience for it, but at the same time i never hide anything. i assume everyone has googled me and are just not confronting me, but i almost want the confrontation, you know? i want my cousin or whoever to say wtf and then i would say okay! im not writing very racey things anyway, its more just handling the reaction of befuddlement which maybe i’m used to. But I wonder what it must be like for xTx publishing something physical and mass produced while still remaining so obviously pseudonymous. the idea that you have a book out and to have the opportunity to not show the book to family or to whoever you are hiding from must be strange. like here’s this book i wrote and i am holding and people i am close to will never know i wrote it.
for what it’s worth, i think the idea of publishing a book and possibly not even being ‘real’ (obviously that is not the case of xTx) is REALLY COMPLETELY AWESOME
i also enjoy when artists fake their deaths
or disappear completely
SECRETS are awesome
One of my favorite fantasies/extrapolations is that Marlowe was not killed in an inn in Deptford, but rather ran from conflicting secret-agent responsibilities – to Italy? to Bermooda? to (why not) Kerala, to become a great Malayalam poet?
Catherine? Writing under a fake name is fun. People get to pretend to be a real person, be anyone they want. Plus, writing is a lot like acting kind of. When you pretend to be the writer you want, who is also a character–has character–then write a bunch of stuff that’s fake, you get to feel mighty real about at least one thing in this world. And that’s nice.
dear tea bud,
“But I wonder what it must be like for xTx publishing something physical and mass produced while still remaining so obviously pseudonymousthe idea that you have a book out and to have the opportunity to not show the book to family or to whoever you are hiding from must be strange. like here’s this book i wrote and i am holding and people i am close to will never know i wrote it. ”
wonder no more… it sucks.
yours,
tea bud.
I think it was Foucault who said every author should write under a pseudonym for one year
Hey lady, if it is anonymity which makes xTx fearless, thank god for it. Using a pen name is one of the most integral rights for any creative person living with daily (dare I say) personal and emotional responsibility toward his/her family. Having a pen name is a very fine way to function as a writer. Age old, my friend. Come on, look at history.
In xTx’s case, it has clearly allowed her to a magical lack of inhibition so many of us writers envy… it has allowed her to be brutally brave and she has the talent to make it glow. Who the fuck cares how she does it?
What you did here, in this post… guessing about xTx’s history and making uneducated personal assumptions (molestions, etc.) This… to me, smacks of nothing but defensiveness and assholery. It is none of your business. What i sense here from you Catherine Lacey, is so sad. What I sense is bitter envy.
You make a lot of good points, Meg, and I agree about xTx’s writing (obviously, as someone who has published her) as well as the inappropriateness of speculating about a writer’s personal life but Catherine is not being bitter or envious and I don’t think anyone reading the post would get that. Catherine can certainly defend herself but I don’t think this should devolve into name calling.
Maybe xtx is a 50 yr old man who adjusts insurance but spent a little time in lock up in the mid-80’s. The lit-porn market is pretty dead after all and no one’s paying.
Maybe xtx is a 50 yr old man who adjusts insurance but spent a little time in lock up in the mid-80’s. The lit-porn market is pretty dead after all and no one’s paying.
Mystery is part of the appeal, is it not? Wondering is more fun than knowing, everytime. (Though in xTx’s particular case, she could tell me all about her job at Wal-Mart in St. Louis and her low-mileage, double-side-doored minivan and how she is a soccer mom with three kids named Hunter, Hayden, and Connor and she gets good deals by going on parenting and coupon forums and her favorite hobbies are scrapbooking and knitting, and I would STILL love her the same.)
Six of one half a dozen of the other. Mark Twain, George Orwell, or George Sand (aka Lucile Dupin) had their reasons for a pen name. Writing is writing. You make interesting points, Catherine, but it is XTX’s call.
I keep telling my dad he’s not allowed to read my forthcoming novel. He won’t like it. It’s raw. It’s graphic and blasphemous, intentionally provocative. He hears me, and he’s incredibly supportive. I know he would be less so if he ever read the book.
Hey Mike, I just posted this in response to Catherine above, but I thought I’d repost to you, too: I keep telling my dad he’s not allowed to read my forthcoming novel. He won’t like it. It’s raw. It’s graphic and blasphemous, intentionally provocative. He hears me, and he’s incredibly supportive. I know he would be less so if he ever read the book.
I think the Andy Devine public persona w/ different people “being” Andy Devine at readings is genius. I also love the bio.
I’ve considered dying right before this summer’s book tour. Probably b/c I really need a vacation.
thank god for rational thinking. It sounds like you know this writer, and that you have defended her of being called (brrrrr) envious.
And if it is envy, i am real curious now… who would admit it? Anyone that suggests hiding behind a pen name and possible family molestation can probably handle being thought of as maybe… i dunno… envious. She is a big girl you say. Good!
Name calling? not sure we saw that here Roxane but your patrol is super (i did use the working verb ‘assholery’ as in to be an or to seem like/act like/come off like an asshole). Penalty. But this is America!
Want to know about xTx? Ask her. I don’t know her but I love reading her stuff; I want a copy of Normally Special.
Pseudonyms? I write under different names, because I write different things and it keeps it simple. Just like I don’t store raw meat and chocolate in the same bowl. Is all.
“For me, the bravery is more in the writing itself rather than how a writer claims that writing.” EXACTLY. LOCK THREAD
I’m using a pseudonym because people at my job read my work and said things to each other like “God, he is FUCKED UP” and no longer ask how my kids are doing and no longer really smile when we pass in the hall. Most non-writers ASSUME EVERY FUCKING WORD IN EVERY STORY YOU WRITE IS “BASICALLY” NON-FICTION. Sure, they may acknowledge that it may not have happened exactly that way but if I were to write a story about a man giving blowjobs to secret service agents, many (most?) non-writers I know would think/suspect I either did such a thing to secret service agents, fantasized about doing such, and/or knew someone who did and I enjoyed hearing about it so much I HAD to write a story about it. Who the fuck cares if my story is written under name “David Erlewine” or “Franklin Goodish”???? Other than one Catherine Lacey, I guess.
To me this sort of speculation, WITHOUT EVEN CHECKING WITH XTX before posting this, is absurd and weak. I know CL is not a journalist but couldn’t she have contacted xTx and given her a chance to comment before posting such absurd speculatory post? Worse yet, CL then in comments speculates about molestation and other such things. F for you, Ms. Lacey. And your story about being 12 and geocities was neither cute nor apt. For those of us not at jobs at universities teaching fiction, it’s not always a “plus” to have fucked up stories floating on the intergoogles. I know xTx well and I could give two shits whether she publishes under her “real” name or not. Why does that make a difference? Why do you care? Bottom line, I think it was shockingly poor taste to make the speculatory comments you made without checking with xTx for comment first.
To me this sort of speculation, WITHOUT EVEN CHECKING WITH XTX before posting this, is absurd and weak. I know CL is not a journalist but couldn’t she have contacted xTx and given her a chance to comment before posting such absurd speculatory post? Worse yet, CL then in comments speculates about molestation and other such things. F for you, Ms. Lacey. And your story about being 12 and geocities was neither cute nor apt. For those of us not at jobs at universities teaching fiction, it’s not always a “plus” to have fucked up stories floating on the intergoogles. I know xTx well and I could give two shits whether she publishes under her “real” name or not. Why does that make a difference? Why do you care? Bottom line, I think it was shockingly poor taste to make the speculatory comments you made without checking with xTx for comment first.
who liked this comment? Catherine Lacey?
who liked this comment? Catherine Lacey?
Roxane, I’d be wary of saying no one reading the post would think CL being bitter or envious. Maybe I wouldn’t use those two adjectives, but I’ve been PISSED about this shit since reading it yesterday. I was so mad I didn’t post anything until I’d had a night to think about it. I’m even angrier today. I know this is the internet and its “everything goes” but to pick xTx out and then speculate about molestation with mealy-mouth caveats is just bush league to me. To finish kicking the dead equine, I can’t believe CL wouldn’t have at least checked with xTx first to ask for insight before basically calling her out on htmlgiant. Yes, because she uses a pseudonym she’s SOOOOOO hard to find, eh? CL could have gone to her website or asked you, Roxane, for her email address or asked you to contact her about the piece. Anything woulda been better than this hit job.
So, let me get this right…CL can speculate brazenly that xTx was molested but then can’t be called bitter/envious. The internet shit talkin goes both ways. Post something where you don’t give your victim a heads up/chance to “weigh in,” and it reeks of bush league moves or something worse.
I like that. And cross-contamination is a bitch.
I will spill the beans. xTx is Mel Gibson. She told me.
Sorry, X.
vipshopper.us
I will spill the beans. xTx is Mel Gibson. She told me.
Sorry, X.
all the writing i do at work is under pseudonyms, lol
wow. um.
Hey Franklin,
I’m sorry to upset you so much. Of course everyone is free to write whatever they want under whatever names they want. I am merely wondering what happens when anyone separates a strand of their writing from the rest of their writing– what would be the motivations behind that? Self-protection? A feeling of freedom? Both? Neither? To me, speculating if maybe a writer was abused or has some kind of pain in their past that has motivated them to use a pseudonym so they can protect themselves and their family in the present– to me that is not shit talking at all. Just the opposite. I have things in my past that have seeped into my writing (fiction or non) that I know people who know me will read and recognize and be hurt by in some way. That’s life. I’ve wondered about using a pseudonym. I continue to wonder. I was just trying to get a dialogue started about it. I am certainly not trying to shit-talk xtx, and I probably should have been more sensitive about the way I wrote that post. Really sorry to have upset anyone by this. That wasn’t my intention at all.
DONT LISTEN TO HIM, BITCHES. IT’S A TRAP TO STEAL YOUR MAGIC.
As much as I agree with you, dude, I think you’re confusing a lack of self-awareness for bitterness/envy.
I get the spark that started all this, to a point. But it’s always the story itself that’s most important. The very job of the writer is to step aside, drop behind the curtain and allow the reader to enter into a fictive world in which the hand of the writer is not seen. At least that’s what I’ve read and been told. Who knows?
Point is, it’s the STORY first and before all else. And I say this while withholding the fairly strong temptation to defend any other points made in relation to this post, especially the writer in question and others for that matter. I know it sounds simple, and as if I’m attempting to take this complicated and healthy debate and toss some water on it, but that’s not the case. It’s just that i’s the work that matters.
Can I have my two cents back? I really kinda need it?
Boo hoo, Franklin. Chill the fuck out.
Hello Meg,
I totally agree with that first paragraph. I’m happy that the person behind xTx found a voice in xTx. I really enjoyed the book & I’m glad it exists. xTx’s writing is fearless, true, but what about whatever it is that she’s publishing under her real name, the stuff that is safe for her family or whomever to read? What does the fearlessness of xTx’s writing say about the stuff that is safe for people to connect to her?
Paragraph 2: Well, I do care about how writers lose their inhibition. I am interested in it. I see nothing wrong with caring about that.
I really am sad that you read any of this as bitter, defensive or envious. It’s probably unfair/irrelevant that I speculated about xTx’s real life. However, in the context of the post, which was about why we may chose to hide your writing from your family/friends, it was just a hypothesis. I should have put more of a caveat on it.
It seems to me condescending to assume that your family members cannot or do not understand you. It also falls under my definition of elitism to start drawing lines between what is acceptable writing and what is not, especially on objective terms. There are no acceptable or unacceptable topics, just accepting and non-accepting opinons of these topics formed by other people.
Franklin, anyone can speculate about everything. xTx is my best friend,. I’d be the first to jump all over someone’s ass to defend her. I simply don’t see this post as malicious in intent. There’s a difference between something that was poorly thought out and something that was intended to attack someone. That’s all I’m trying to say.
Ah, close! He said every author should publish anonymously for one year, no names at all. He said this in a published interview in which he (Foucault) remained anonymous (at the time at least).
I like what Janey Smith said above about creating a character who then writes fiction, the fictional creating the fictional.
An academic acquaintance of mine once received comments on one of his essay submissions from an anonymous journal committee member. From the comments, he became convinced that the committee member was Frederic Jameson. He struck up a correspondence with this commenter who he thought was Jameson, which turned out to be very fruitful for his own work, and even though he never found out if the anonymous commenter ever was in fact Jameson, the fact that he thought the commenter was Jameson inspired him to great heights in his letters such that his correspondence with the real or imposter Jameson became one of the most memorable experiences of his academic career.
I didn’t read all comments, sorry, so I’m just responding to the article itself, which I thought was more about the author and less about xTx. I didn’t read it as malicious or attacking. My own story: I wrote under the nom de plume “Finnegan Flawnt” (see http://flawnt.me/) for almost two years until I gave up because, in the end, it cost me too much energy to maintain the false identity (which had never really been false – as I assume in the case of xTx that, if I met her, I would recognize her, sort of, because her writing is authentic). I had originally begun this not as a game – though intermittently I did have a lot of fun and seemed to create some entertainment for others, too – but because I felt deeply insecure about my writing and about putting myself out there. Now, I’ve returned to my real name. Kind of, because I publish under my father’s name but not under my real name (known at my day job). Sometimes I miss the anonymity and what it allowed me to do, mostly I don’t. Also, I do own a copy of Normally Special and it’s special, you should get it.
I liked this post. None of it seemed out-of-line to me. It’s interesting to discuss the phenomenon of pen names, and how using one opens any author up to a world of speculation. Such is the cost of using a pseudonym, particularly one as intentionally false as “xtx”. I don’t know her work, personally, and I think it’s great to use a pen name for whatever reason one chooses, but if she didn’t want people to speculate, she could have used Sharon Smith or Joan Hill or Mindy Oosterhaus or Elizabeth Tate or Allison Monet or Amy Landry or Elaine Sean or Francine James or Margaret Anne Isham or Dottie Maxwell or Lawrence Ellis or Esther Black.
Interesting that everyone posting here seems to assume that one’s “given,” government name is their “real” name. What if all our names are pseudonyms?
Go pseudonyms. Pseudonyms are great. If fiction is about plumbing the inner depths of the self, this is a good topic for those who would have a problem with it. For the rest of us, let us have our reasons and keep them to ourselves if we wish.
I thought the article was perfectly fine, and I’d be thrilled if everyone was talking about my book. Long live the pseudonym and the controversy it inspires.
Clarion, yeah, I do think you’re right. I should have taken 2 nights, not 1, to respond. If anything it’s lack of self-awareness that drove me crazy. Maybe it’s the fmr jounalist that annoyed me so much about the molestation speculation that just sort of “hung” out in the initial post.
Well said, and I get that. Indeed, I never took CL as being bitter or envious. I was just annoyed about the “un-fact checked” speculation about molestation and it irked me to no end.
CL, I applaud your update and your follow up to Sarah Rose. I’m a fucked up asshole in many ways and a former journalist and one who has dabbled with psuedonyms over the years. Thus, “visceral” reactions from me spewed out. I didn’t “like” your post for the reasons Sarah stated but I (shocker!) couldn’t articulate why precisely so I just sniped and bitched and groused. Your post has made me think a lot about all these things so that’s good.
This morning, just for fun, I googled ‘faulkner quotes’ (a type of thing I am occasionally wont to do), came across the two below, was reminded of this post/thread, and à propos ce que je ne sais pas thought I’d toss them into this conversation. Granted, they were written in another time and ‘place’ – before the internets & cetera.
[The writer] must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed—love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. – (Nobel Prize Speech)
I’m old fashioned and probably a little mad too; I don’t like having my private life and affairs available to just any and everyone who has the price of the vehicle it’s printed in, or a friend who bought it and will lend it to him. – (Selected Letters of William Faulkner 215)
Respect for the self-determination of individuals and communities is one of my highest values. If xTx tells me she is xTx, she is xTx. I strive to meet people wherever they’re at. For me, that goes much deeper than “of course everyone is free to write under whatever name they want.”
Catherine — correct me if I am off in my reading of your post, but I feel like there is an implied politics to your post — the idea that owning our ugliest and most compromising narratives is liberatory. Generally, I agree with this and think it is a principle worth spreading.
But respect for others’ self determination trumps it. And remaining mindful of everything we may not know, what may be invisible to us about the context in which others’ find themselves. Listening to them tell us their reasons when the situation call for it, rather than jumping to our conclusions and explanations. …This to me is different than speculating publicly about trauma individuals may or may not have experienced — I think most experience this as pathologizing, which is perhaps part of the reason for the strong reactions to your post.
Amen TJY.
http://shortlinks.co.uk/36yj
Names, like all words, are arbitrary.
Personally, I’ve followed xtx’s work for at least a year and have always wondered why she doesn’t just come out and give her name already – but that’s her business and I don’t think there’s anything to discuss past that.
not that you asked, but i write under my real name and pseudonym simultaneously.
not that you asked, but i write under my real name and pseudonym simultaneously.
i’ve been thinking about this a lot and here’s what i think. readers feel the need to encourage pseudonym users to reveal their real name because we think what they’re doing is positive/beneficial/great, whatever. but just by validating the pseudonym user’s work, we take ourselves out of the pool of people for whom the writer has created their pseudonym, right?
from an interview of Michel Foucault by Christian Delacampagne in which Foucault remained anonymous:
===
Why did I suggest that we use anonymity? Out of nostalgia for a time when, being quite unknown, what I said had some chance of being heard. With the potential reader, the surface of contact was unrippled. The effects of the book might land in unexpected places and form shapes that I had never thought of. A name makes reading too easy.
I shall propose a game: that of the “year without a name.” For a year books would be published without their authors’ names. The critics would have to cope with a mass of entirely anonymous books. But, now I come to think of it, it’s possible they would have nothing to do: all the authors would wait until the following year before publishing their books…
If I have chosen anonymity, it is not, therefore, to criticize this or that individual, which I never do. It’s a way of addressing the potential reader, the only individual here who is of interest to me, more directly: “Since you don’t know who I am, you will be more inclined to find out why I say what you read; just allow yourself to say, quite simply, it’s true, it’s false. I like it or I don’t like it. Period.”
===
What can I say… You shouldn’t come to this site expecting clarion calls from a majority of its contributors.
what is with people. it’s art. a person feels like writing and they feel like using a penname. who cares about the penname part the point is that the person is writing. sheesh. writers are too weird, man. *returns to cave
[…] There was an interesting post on HTML Giant not too long ago about the uses of pseudonyms in the writing community (the specific example being […]
[…] the next level, for her to come out as herself or make up a less questionable pseudonym; I foresaw this attack a full two years in advance. Our debate culminated on the first page of Nobody Trusts a Black […]
[…] xTx: http://htmlgiant.com/craft-notes/fear-bravery-of-pseudonyms/#disqus_thread. […]