Nicola Cornick Quotes

I chose to publish the first 'Shopaholic' book under a pseudonym because I wanted it to be judged on its own merits.

'Mira Grant' is actually my pseudonym. And 'Seanan' is pronounced 'SHAWN-in.'

I chose my pen name when I was ten, because I knew even then that my legal name would be more trouble than it was worth.

I began writing when I was still in the British Foreign Service, and it was then understood that even if you wrote about butterfly collecting, you used another name.

I think maybe I might have to do what some other authors do, which is do a variation on my name, just to send readers the message that, 'Yep, this is me, but this is a different part of me. So brace yourself.'

My own life has been doubly disconnected, as I've written books under two different names. As an author, your name almost becomes a brand; readers know what to expect.

A writer is supposed to have anonymity.

I wish always to be quoted as George Eliot.

In 1962 I wrote for 'Jazz News,' using the pseudonym Manfred Manne, which I picked because of a jazz drummer with that name. I later dropped the 'e.'

Grand Central really didn't want me doing anything under my own name but the 'Kitty' novels.

The decision to use a pen name was nothing more than a desire to compartmentalise my life. However, I had not thought about an appropriate pseudonym, and since there's an abundance of anagrams in the novel, the idea struck me: why not use an anagram of my name? Hence, Shawn Haigins.

And I can't think of a reason I'd ever use a pseudonym, as I wouldn't want to publish something that I didn't like enough to put my name on it.

If you have to pay the bills, and you write something you're not proud of, use a pen-name for that.

I am George Cockcroft. But when I come to England or Europe, where the name Luke Rhinehart is better known, then I use that name.

I used the pen name because I knew I wanted to write better novels under my own name someday.

On the advice of my U.K. publishers, I chose a sexless anonymity and published my first five books under the semi-pseudonym, S. J. Bolton. I was happy. I could hide behind a genderless, classless persona and let my creepy, psychological murder-mysteries speak for themselves.

I've written 26 books and novellas as Molly O'Keefe. I moved through three different Harlequin lines and into single-title romance with Bantam writing under that name. Fun fact: It's not my name, and it's not even one I picked.

I always know when a novel is going to be a Barbara Vine one. In fact I believe that if I weren't to write it as Barbara Vine, I wouldn't be able to write it at all.

When I began writing in the mid-1960s, I thought it was not important for readers to know whether I was male or female. Also, I was a great admirer of E.B. White, so I may have thought that it would bring me luck to submit my first manuscript as 'E.L.' But if I were starting out today, I would use my first name.

I wrote four novels under the name Amy Silver. The first one was commissioned, and I was given basically the whole plot and the characters. They told me what to do, and I went straight away and did it. After that, I continued, and I was coming up with more my own ideas, although they did steer me.

One of the things I liked about writing for a magazine was a kind of anonymity. When you do books, it's different than magazine pieces because you become a 'figure.'

I soon abandoned the question of who Kurban Said or Essad Bey was for the more problematic one - who was Lev Nussimbaum?

Not all women write the same. But I don't understand why the model is that you're supposed to write like a man, and that means you're a real writer.

Real writers-that is, capital W Writers-rarely make much money. Their biggest reward is the occasional reader's response.... Commentators-in-print voicing big fat opinions-you might call us small w writers-get considerably more feedback than Writers. The letters I personally find most flattering are not the very rare ones that speak well of my editorials, but the occasional reader who wants to know who writes them. I always happily assume the letter-writers is implying that the editorials are so good that I couldn't have written them myself.

...it is a sneaking piece of cowardice for authors to put feigned names to their works, as if, like bastards of their brain, they were afraid to own them.