I think the "Letitia" suggestion was good.

How about: "Letitia T. Hornblower"

I'm actually thinking something unbelievably prosaic might work. Something so prosaic, it doesn't sound like an alias. "Elaine Goldberg" or something.

OK, maybe not.

Amanda Graves

Ruth Hargrove (an aunt's name)

Stella Halley

I wrote one romance in 2001 that I published under a pseudonym -- I used my parents' first names, Sara Howard. I liked that. For the young adult series that was A Big Fat Nightmare (and which I'm no longer writing) I used J.B. Stephens, which stood for the boys' first initials and Stephen's name. The only thing is, I hate that other people are writing the series and using it now. Feh.

Elaine Goldberg. Heh.

I like Amanda Graves for Deb. Or she could do the Lewis Carroll thing and reverse the initals for her names and come out with Grace Dawson, or Gloria Danzig, or something along those lines.

If Parick and I ever co-wrote something, the pen name would be Joan Furey, which is our middle names as well as family names. I also have a penname just for me picked out, Bieta Kendrick, which is a little fake-looking but authentically reflects my ancestry, so.

I'm not really a pseudonym gal, but I wish I were, sometimes...the latest piece that is going to be published involving something that very few people knew about me. But it's too late now.

I think I'd need to go look at wherever section the stores use for horror these days. My mind is so tuned into the mystery shelves that I think, hmmm, do I want to be next to all those E's, Evanovich, etc.

Must go see who writes horror these days. Of course, if I was using my own name, I'd be next to Laura Ann Gilman, who's a buddy of mine, so, alas...

Talisman

He first arrived in a box from Great-Aunt Gertrude, an erratic but inspired giver of gifts. Each Christmas since, he has been lovingly unpacked and batteries fumbled into his hollow legs. Then comes a moment of anticipation and the sound of a tiny bell.

Each year when I go home for Christmas, I head straight towards him, a bit fearful that this year the wires will have corroded, the circuits failed. Surely at 40, he is well over 200 in appliance years. I click the switch, the arm rings its bell, the eyes flash, and Santa is home for Christmas.

Oh, man. Ginger, that was bliss. A light-up Santa as a talisman i so. damned. cool.

It doesn’t look like much. Just a little white-and-pink rope with two big knots in it. It doesn’t really belong with the other writing stuff, Bird By Bird. The Writer’s Market, books signed by Keillor, Simon, Alexie(bet they would never share another room ever.)

But my dog used to drop this in here when she’d stop playing to come sit under my desk and look like she was going to say “ You start off strong, but that second graf sucks. You can do better than that. I know you can.” Sometimes I used to joke that she was just waiting for my net connection, but she was the world’s furriest proofreader, I think. There were words she really didn’t seem to like.”Okie-dokey” was one. She heard somebody say it in her youth and she turned her face away. So of course, Mom said it a lot to watch her do that, and she always did.

That last illness was short but brutal, and she died with her rope thing dropped where she left it when she woke up too sick to play with it. I thought there was no other place it should be, but where the writing happens. I touch it for luck.