standard ishue–Katie

I never thought much about pen names. I’d read a book and at the end I’d be surprised the author’s name was a pseudonym for another author that I enjoyed reading. Sometimes, I’d notice that an author would use one name for historical romance, one for sci-fi, one for contemporary works. Okay, it’s genre related. Pretty cool.

End of story. Until this weekend…

Let me give you some back story. I chose my pen name for several reasons. One, it’s different from my real name. (DUH!!!) No, I mean really different, because in my previous life, I wrote curriculum and educational material for teachers and students. I’m envisioning the parental outcry as they address the Board of Education:

“It’s pornography, sir, plain and simple. She uses that word in her writing.”

“What do you want us to do, Mrs. Smith?”

“Burn the witch! Burn the witch!”

Well, it wouldn’t be that bad, but I’d like to keep parents focused on the important stuff, like their child getting a quality education.

So the pseudonym I chose honors my two kids: Katie and Stephen. Hence, Katie Stephens. Voila!

Fast forward to this weekend. You’ve all seen the entries I’ve posted about the romance anthology. As we’re getting it on sites for pre-orders, I get this frantic Facebook message from Valerie:

“There’s another author named Katie Stephens. I need a middle initial!”

Umm, I don’t have a middle initial. It’s a pseudonym.

Once I stopped laughing, I told her to add the initial ‘I.’ Something about having my initials read “KIS(s) my ass” tickled me. But I really don’t like the way it looks. Katie I Stephens. Meh. It might as well say Katie ME Stephens, yeah? But it’s only for the All Romance site, I believe.

Then I got to thinking. How about a complete change to KI Stephens? I’d still have the KIS going for me. I like the look of it.

Katie has that young, fresh, naive connotation, right? Would you read pornography by Katie? Would I write it? With KI, I could do anything, be anything, write anything!! I’d be free, free, free!

Comments welcome 🙂