Read Around the Rainbow | Do You Use a Pen Name?

It’s Read Around the Rainbow time!!! Every month, we’re a group of authors who get together and blog about the same topic, and May’s topic is: Do you use a pen name? And if so, why?

I do, more than one, actually. I’ve been Ofelia Gränd for ten years now. On June 5th 2014, my first story was published. It was through Goodreads MM Romance Groups’ Don’t Read in the Closet event. I’d written a few stories before then, MF stories in Swedish, just for the fun of it. Nothing I ever published. And I saw this event and thought why not? So I snagged a prompt. Readers sent in requests, a short description of what they wanted and an image to go with it. Editors would help get the story in shape for free, and the story would be offered to the group’s members for free.

I did it for the fun of it, and I was working as a teacher at the moment, teaching 16-19-year-olds, so I didn’t want my real name tangled up with spicy gay romance. I figured the school might not be pleased, and I didn’t know if I’d write more than one story.

I would, of course, but I wasn’t sure I’d publish anything more. The main reason I did the Don’t Read in the Closet event was the free editing.

So yeah, that was the reason I started Ofelia Gränd. Then, back in 2020, I felt I wanted to do something else. Not changing how I write, or switching genres, or anything like that. But I felt that Ofelia was a mess LOL. I wrote everything from romance to horror, flash fiction to novel length, no heat whatsoever to high heat, and I thought maybe I didn’t have more readers than I did because they never knew what they were getting.

How do you market a mess?

So I started Holly Day. It was much due to Nell Iris, A.L. Lester, and J.M. Snyder. We met up in a chatroom and did writing sprints, and I was writing a Christmas story at the moment. I told them I could write holiday stories all year round. Then I took the kids to the playground and all the while I was thinking about what I’d said.

At first, I thought I’d do Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas or something like that. I told them what I was thinking, and said if I ever was to do something like that I was to name myself Holly Day because I’ll write holiday stories. We had a laugh, but they kept telling me to do it.

So I did. I wrote a Valentine’s story and submitted it to JMS Books as Holly Day, and it wasn’t until then I thought that no, I wasn’t gonna do the big holidays. I was gonna do the crazy ones. So next I wrote a story for Kiss a Ginger Day, and since that was in January and Valentine in February, J.M. Snyder scheduled them accordingly, and the whole idea of monthly releases written for a specific holiday was born.

So, my first pen name was to keep my identity hidden, my second was to fit a brand.

Curious about if the others are writing under their real names or not?? Well, hop on over there and have a look!

Ellie Thomas

Addison Albright

Fiona Glass