Have you ever considered using a pen name? This episode, we’re going to explore some of the many reasons writers use pseudonyms!

Thanks to Christopher McCarthy for being on the show today!

You can read his poetry at Flat Singles Press and Cadaverine Magazine.

Samuel Clemens used Mark Twain as a pen name. Here’s his reason why:

“I was a fresh new journalist, and needed a nom de guerre; so I confiscated the ancient mariner’s discarded one, and have done my best to make it remain what it was in his hands– a sign and symbol and warrant that whatever is found in its company may be gambled on as being the petrified truth; how I have succeeded, it would not be modest in me to say.”

Lemony Snicket’s full bio can be read here.

If You Forget Me

by Pablo Neruda

(a.k.a. Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto)

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

J.K. Rowling writes mystery fiction under the name Robert Gailbraith.

What would your pen name be? You can tweet it to us @hardcoverradio. Thanks for listening!