Pen Names, Memoirs and Honesty

I was having an existential dilemma about using a pen name. As soon as I hit “publish” on this website and launched this pen name into cyberspace, it gave me pause. The past twenty-five years of my recovery from drug and alcohol abuse has been based on a foundation of honesty—to myself and others—of no longer living a double life. Then BAM! here I am with a new name, just like that? It didn’t feel right. So, I talked to a few trusted friends and mentors and meditated on it. Slowly, it came to me that the right thing to do was to just be honest about it.

Lynn Walker is a pen name and there are two reasons why I am using it:

1) When Dad and I started this journey together of me writing our stories, he fell in love with my writing and the idea of me publishing someday. The only request he had was that I not use his real name and we came up with our pen names together. I want to honor his request.

2) I have a really cool and rewarding 25-year career that has absolutely nothing to do with writing or the part of my life on which my memoir is based. A colleague searching for my contact info on the web might be confused if they found a website about me being the daughter of a drug smuggler! Though I will most certainly share a link to this website with many of them.

Any other memoir writers using pen names?

#pennames