I think the first, tommy-- the whole thing started when I finaled in the RITA contest over three years ago. She mistakenly received congratulations for finaling and that's when her complaints began, made easier by the fact that we shared the same agent and happened to be published by subsidiaries of the same publisher. She was incensed that our agent and the publisher had "allowed" me used of the name. Mind you, I'd already been published for nearly a year and it had been public knowledge for longer than that, what name I was going to be using.

It only got worse after I won the award, but then, my career slowed down a bit with the mess with the house that first bought STARS and then canceled the contract, so it's going to have been just over three years since I've been published. In the meantime, she's on book twenty-something and in a thickening of the plot, I discovered she has a release coming out the same month as STARS, the second book in a series where the first book was kind of dinged by Publisher's Weekly:

The premise is intriguing, but [INSERT NAME] never fully develops it, and too many inconsistencies distract the reader from both romance and science.

So she's multi-published and has a middling career.

Then again, so do I. Thing is, I see it as impetus to continue getting better. I want to earn my accolades, not feel as if I'm entitled to them for whatever bent reason I can come up with.

I personally think she maybe thought it was uniquer than it is.

Perhaps in terms of authorship, maybe, except there's a playwright and another author who both share the same name that I know of. There may be more, honestly. And again, in the land where reality counts for something, I can't imagine anyone Cuban-born or of that cultural background could have that name and not understand how unbelievably common it is.

I think the first, tommy-- the whole thing started when I finaled in the RITA contest over three years ago.

Heh. I kinda' suspected that.

But if she blames you for holding her career back or whatever, that means you'll be dealing with more of her crazy than if she was just preemptively trying to avoid confusion.

She sounds like an utter, self-centered brat, Barb.

I still think part of it is just looking for a fight. Don't know her, but have encountered the brand of crazy before. Still of course since Barb does know her will defer to Barb's judgment.

I can't imagine anyone Cuban-born or of that cultural background could have that name and not understand how unbelievably common it is.

Hello? It's like me trying to TM "Maria." Not only do I have millions of Italians with the same name, there's also:

• Mexicans
• Cubans
• Puerto Ricans
• Spaniards
• Portuguese
• Brazilians
• Chileans
• Nicaraguans
• Dominicans
• and a whole host of other LA countries that have a colonial/Catholic heritage

SRSLY? @@

Might as well TM the name "John Smith" in the U.S.

edited to finish my thought.

All this time I thought you two had firstname lastname in common, but I finally found the other person's website and it's just the first name? OMGsupercrazy.

Oh, so it's kind of like saying "Gee, hope there's not another novelist named "Mary O'Brien." There probably is. Now, if she also writes mysteries like you, and both of you insist on green covers, it might be a thing.

I like how when you go to Barb's site, the most prominent picture is the cover of her new book, while on Other Lady's site, most prominent is a picture of Other Lady.

Ugh Barb, sounds like the kind of crazy that will not go away quietly, unfortunately. What a PITA.