It never occurred to me how many authors on Vocal use pen names. When I take the time to write a story, I want everyone to know it was me, not a pseudo me that wrote it. Yes, that means the world knows I wrote a great tale or some rubbish, but that’s okay.
Maybe some people have common names or ones that are hard to pronounce, so they’re looking for some distinction. That makes sense, but don’t you want people to know it’s you who wrote that masterpiece instead of “Who was that masked man?”
About the Creator
Mark Gagnon
My life has been spent traveling here and abroad. Now it's time to write.
I have three published books: Mitigating Circumstances, Short Stories for Open Minds, and Short Stories from an Untethered Mind. Unmitigated Greed is do out soon.
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Finders Keepers
What do you consider valuable? Is it a piece of jewelry, a work of art, or maybe a family photo? Some wealthy people gauge their success by the number of rare items they’ve collected. Finding missing treasures for rich investors is what I do¬ — I’m a finder. My job takes me from small antique shops to private collectors who are in financial distress and looking to liquidate valuable assets. The work is always interesting and occasionally dangerous if multiple finders are searching for the same object. We don’t get paid unless we recover a requested item.
By Mark Gagnon3 years ago in Fiction
Stories Before a Wedding, or The Happily Ever After of Cinderella
Cinderella had always dreamt of marrying a prince. She had dreamt of nothing else since she was a small girl. Now, however, as the Prince’s wife of three days, she had to admit that the reality was not as she had dreamt it to be.
By Dionearia Red6 days ago in Fiction
Foot Bindings
I asked my grandmother how she knew she'd fallen in love. I am not sure I ever did love him, she said. This was before I met my husband. I was naive, a naked spring, a raw nerve of a thing. That cannot ever be me, I knew. Sadness swept in gently like a Moscow thaw. It is no simple thing, looking into a woman's vast soul and seeing its foot bindings. Now, in Italy divorced with my skin singed off, when I say I don't love him mean: I have succeeded at feeling nothing most days and it mostly works. Do you want the comfort of Nothing? Do you want Nothing, too? Be warned: you'll never be free, even when you are nothing. Here is what doesn't work: Accepting the stages of grief. Talking about it. Sitting with the feeling. Missing him—no, the person you were when you believed in death do us part. Writing poetry. That, too. When I say I don't love him I mean: I feel capsized in an endless, starved tide. What sometimes works: selective memory. You must forget ripe tomatoes and his beard and feeling perfectly sheltered in a big blue world. Forget coffee in bed, laughter watching TV, blowing out the candles on the birthday cake and the quiet all-encompassing knowledge that you are chosen. Remember only how love turned to a banal everyday survival act, a trapeze act unsure whether he will catch you, how the warmth stagnated and became sour, remember the foot bindings and remember the resentment boiling in your veins as you stick it out for the kids. Six-hour Netflix binges help, too. A man's fingers tracing your spine. Frozen pizza at 2 a.m. Random trips to the museum just to stand near things that last a while. The realization that crying won’t change anything. Seeing that life is just a dream, and refusing to participate in your own suffering. Bite your fist. Walk on eggshells around joy. When I say I don't love him, I mean he didn’t break my heart, he just stopped touching it and it forgot how to beat right.
By Ella Bogdanova2 days ago in Poets
Comments (6)
My pen name is for safety reasons because I have a former abuser who looks me up online. However, my pen name is also my new name that I will be published under and that I go by in real life. I left my old name and identify behind when I left my abuser.
Relate to this, because like you I want the world to know it was me! In my work I am rarely credited so for non-work writing I just use my name! great piec! you have a new subscriber!
Pernoste may be a secret agent... not quite sure... and I am mysterious in everything but my name. 💙 Anneliese
I write under my partial name haha… I’d like to use my full name but I’m also happy with going by this for writing purposes. I can definitely see why people that have some kind of active professional license (in a medical or legal field for example) under their real name don’t want their vocal page of short stories or personal poetry to be what comes up first in a google search 🤷🏼♀️. And secret agents, like you said hahah
I love this piece Mark, it really hits home for me. I write under a pseudonym for a lot of reasons. Mostly because I'm from a small town where everyone knows everyone and I just don't like people knowing my business. I'm not confident enough in myself or my work yet, so I worry about receiving poor feedback and in crumpling my fragile ego. The other reason is that I have relatives that like to scam people and I don't want the negative association.
I write under my own name, though some writers use pen names for more descretion.