#publishing under a BIPOC pen-name when not BIPOC

[afieldofheather]

regular 1. a book with the word "leap" in the title 2. a bildungsroman book | Down Among the Sticks and Bones 3. a book about a 24-year-old | Wrong Place, Wrong Time 4. a book about a writer | Kindred 5. a book about K-pop 6. a book about pirates 7. a book about women's sports and/or by a woman athlete | The Body in the Library 8. a book by a blind or visually impaired author | The Color Purple 9. a book by a deaf or hard-of-hearing author | Not A Sound 10. a book by a self-published author | The Seventh Bride 11. a book from a genre you typically avoid | Where the Drowned Girls Go 12. a book from an animal's POV | Cold Clay 13. a book originally published under a pen name | Twilight Falls 14. a book recommended by a bookseller | The Moving Finger 15. a book recommended by a librarian | Murder Road 16. a book set 24 years before you were born | When We Left Cuba 17. a book set in a travel destination on your bucket list | In An Absent Dream 18. a book set in space 19. a book set in the future | Beneath the Sugar Sky 20. a book set in the snow | Bryony and Roses 21. a book that came out in a year that ends with "24" | Mislaid in Parts Half-Known 22. a book that centers on video games | Homeworlds 23. a book that features dragons | His Majesty's Dragon 24. a book that takes place over the course of 24 hours | Orbital 25. a book that was published 24 years ago (2000) 26. a book that was turned into a musical | Mary Poppins 27. a book where someone dies in the first chapter | 4:50 from Paddington 28. a book with a main character who's 42 years old | None of this is True 29. a book with a neurodivergent main character | Come Tumbling Down 30. a book with a one-word title you had to look up in a dictionary | Points of Origin 31. a book with a title that is a complete sentence | A Murder is Announced 32. a book with an enemies to lovers plot | Love in the Time of Serial Killers 33. a book with an unreliable narrator | The Winter Spirits 34. a book with at least 3 POVs | Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea 35. a book with magical realism | Lost in the Moment and Found 36. a book written by an incarcerated or formerly incarcerated person | The Four Million 37. a book written during NaNoWriMo | Shady Hollow 38. a cozy fantasy book | Mirror Lake 39. a fiction book by a trans or nonbinary author | A Quiet Afternoon 40. a horror book by a BIPOC author | The Cutting Season 41. a memoir that explores queerness | How Far the Light Reaches 42. a nonfiction book about Indigenous people | Braiding Sweetgrass 43. a second-chance romance | Something Wilder 44. an autobiography by a woman in rock 'n' roll | Resistance: A Songwriter's Story of Hope, Change, and Courage 45. an LGBTQ+ romance novel | Female of the Species

advanced 1. a book in which a character sleeps for more than 24 hours | Thornhedge 2. a book with 24 letters in the title | Across the Green Grass Fields 3. a collection of at least 24 poems | the sun and her flowers 4. the 24th book of an author | Rolling in the Deep 5. a book that starts with the letter "X" | X

#reading challenge

[writingwithcolor]

Publishing stories with spouse’s name (Arabic) even though i’m white

@azurlys asked:

I am a white author who plans to publish using a pen name with my significant other's last name. We are legally married but I have not (and cannot) legally change my name. (We don't live in the USA.) They have supported and nurtured my writing like no one else, and the use of their name is to honor them. However, the last name is an Arabic last name. What are some ways to be up front and honest about this when it comes to putting my writing out there?

Assume Assumptions Will Be Made

People will make assumptions about your background based on your name and there’s no real way around that. If you are writing books with Arab characters, people will probably assume you’re representing your own community and experiences. You can be upfront about it by mentioning your background in your author bio and generally in any place where you introduce yourself or talk about your writing. You can also make sure to correct any mistakes that may occur if you are offered opportunities reserved for authors of color, or placed on lists of authors of color. Still, you won’t be able to entirely avoid misleading some people, so it’s up to you to decide whether you’re okay with that.

-Niki

Your intentions can be as pure as a baby's giggle, but there will always be strangers who flat-out won't believe it. Unless you are very comfortable with some people believing the worst of you, I'd advise against it.

Plus, there really isn’t a way to make sure every single reader sees you being “up-front and honest about this,” because plenty of people don’t have Twitter or read author bios on the book or whatever. --Shira

I agree with the above points. However, I especially want to emphasize what Niki and Shira’s are saying: You can be as well-intentioned and transparent as you wish. It will likely not make a difference. You can no more stop people from forming their own assumptions about you than you can stop them from thinking. Thus, I strongly think the alternative suggestions by Emme below for honoring your partner are worth considering.

- Marika.

Politics of Race and Race-faking in Publishing

Providing my own thoughts from a discussion that Mod Niki facilitated!

Considering how so many people with “ethnic” non-white names must assimilate in order to be seen as palatable for western audiences, I do not feel comfortable with white people doing the inverse, despite any good intentions. Too often we have “racefaking” and intentional deceit when it comes to exploiting opportunities set aside for people of color.

--Emme

I agree. I don’t think it is realistic to assume that you are operating in a world where the identity suggested to your audience by your pen-name won’t impact:

How editors interact with your story

The likelihood of your being published

Who your audience believes you are

Lastly, from a professional standpoint, you should consider that once your body of work is associated with a given pen-name, it will be difficult to switch should you need to for any reason.

- Marika.

Alternatives?

There are certainly ways to honor your significant other aside from publishing your work under their surname (as Mod Niki and Mod Shira described above):

A dedication page? 

Creating a main character (of SO’s ethnic background) sharing that surname in your story?

These, in my opinion, are much more solid ways to honor people in your writing and allow for a natural progression of explanation (i.e. People will be interested in what you have to say about creating your world, a heartfelt message you have for your SO before you story begins).

I emphasize Mod Niki’s suggestion above, if you did continue to publish under your spouse’s surname. How transparent are you being about your own race? Is your reasoning for writing under an Arabic surname clear to your readers and publishers?

--Emme

Partner’s Perspective?

You’ve talked a lot about why you want to use your partner’s pen-name for your writing. How does your partner feel about this? If it is known that the two of you are married, anything you write with your partner’s name will also be linked to them in the public’s eye. How do both of you feel about that? Are either of you active on social media? How will you both cope if there is public outcry over the optics of a white, Westerner publishing under an ostensibly non-Western name (I recognize that sentiments might differ between different international markets, but twitter, instagram and tumblr being what they are, let’s not kid ourselves).

As a mixed person who regularly has to be tactful about which identity I present to different audiences, I view this question more as an opportunity to give advice than to tell you what to do, so please take everyone’s responses to heart and then make the choice best for you, your partner and your conscience.

- Marika.

#Media #Publishing #pen-names #publishing under a BIPOC pen-name when not BIPOC #race politics #identity politics #race-faking #WWC #asks