There's a discussion on one of my Christian writing groups recently about the use of pen names, which is when an author writes a book under an assumed name. Famous pen names include Lewis Carroll (known in real life as mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), George Eliot (who was really a woman named Mary Ann Evans) or Richard Bachmann (also known as Stephen King).

I suppose I get the concept if say, you're a deacon in your local Baptist church and you're writing torrid Harlequin romance novels, with covers emblazoned with drawings of rugged, muscular men dressed in tight pants and pirate shirts engaged in passionate lip locks with busty, half-clad women. Chances are that unless you tell someone yourself you'll go to the grave with the secret. (Unless, of course, your bank needs to see I.D. to cash a check made out to "Tootsie Luvsalot".)

But I’m confused by those writers who use a pen name and then promote the fact. I was looking at a website for a woman who had written a very personal, detailed memoir about her marriage and divorce and who now counsels women in the same situation. She used a pen name to write the book and changed the names of the main characters.

But right there, next to her bio explaining that she was writing under an alias, was her full color picture. Like her ex wasn't going to recognize her - and himself - in the book? Like her own family didn't know she'd written the book? What writer could keep that advance check a secret?

There's an English teacher in our city who writes romance novels under her first initial and maiden name. Every time the local paper covers the release of a new book they make a point of explaining that she's the high school English teacher writing under an alias, and then prints her photo next to the article. What’s the point?

I've often wondered if I should write using a pen name. It would make it harder for fans to find my number in the phonebook (not that they're looking now, but I'm thinking ahead, you know?). Instead of Joanne Brokaw I could write under the name Binky McFlifferhoffer. That could be freeing. I mean, being Binky McFlifferhoffer might allow me to burst out of my shell and pen the next great American novel.

Except that no one knows Binky McFlifferhoffer, so why would anyone read anything she wrote? I'd have to create a whole new persona, and resume, and list of credentials. Basically, I'd be back to square one. And what if she was successful? How would I convince people that the literary genius Binky McFlifferhoffer was really plain old me? I’d spend my life wallowing in my own shadow.

To be honest, unless I truly am a multiple personality with a Binky McFlifferhoffer inside who writes amazing fiction, I don't have time to manage two writing careers.

But it's nice to have a back up, just in case.

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