Who are You Today?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  When I was, oh, eight, I used to read Photoplay (anyone, anyone?) and look at photos of movie stars. Back then (imagine old woman voice) you could send in for eight-by-tens glossies of the stars, and they would send them to you. Free, if you sent a stamped self-addressed manila envelope.

That was irresistible to star-struck me, but I thought my own name, Harriet Ann, was not cool enough to entice a movie star to send me their photo. So I made up a name. A cooler name.  And my secret identity is the one who sent in my request to Photoplay.

Time went by. Some weeks later, my mom came into my room holding a manila mailing envelope. With our number, street and city. Strangely, in my handwriting. But to someone she did not realized lived with us at 4102 North Ritter. 

“Who,” she inquired in a bewildered but amused voice, “is Rita Capri?”

Erica O’Rourke totally understands. She's the award-winning author of young adult fiction, and she needed a new name too. But not to snag movie star photos. 

Here’s the scoop on how she handles her secret identity…and then we want to know: what would you do?.

The (Kinda) Secret Life of Lucy

In publishing, “debut” is a big word. So big, it should be surrounded by lights, perhaps posted on a marquee. Many of the (very nice) reviews I’ve received for my new book, TIME OF DEATH, mention that it’s a debut.

And technically, it is. TIME OF DEATH is Lucy Kerr’s debut novel.

But it’s not my first book. It’s my first adult novel, my first mystery. But I’ve published two entire series of books already. How do I put this gently? I am the publishing equivalent of “a woman of a certain age.”

And yet, that word keeps cropping up. “Debut.”

The trick, of course, is that I’m Lucy Kerr – but I’m also Erica O’Rourke. Like Clark Kent and Superman, Diana Prince and Wonder Woman, and countless other superheroes, I have a secret identity now. (Technically it’s a pen name. A nom de plume. A pseudonym. But I have a superhero-obsessed eight-year-old, so secret identity it is.)

What prompts a mild-mannered suburban mom to take on a secret identity?

The first reason is practical: Lucy and Erica write different books. Erica writes young adult books with a strong element of magic or science fiction, and an equally strong romantic bent. Lucy’s books are traditional adult mysteries. My teen readers know what to expect when they pick up a book with my name on it—and it’s not a thirty-two-year-old emergency room nurse who solves mysteries. The same applies to my adult readers: picking up paranormal romance when they’re expecting an amateur sleuth mystery might be an unwelcome surprise. Using different names for such different genres means my readers can easily find the types of books they’re interested in.

The second is psychological. When I sit down to write a Lucy book, my writing process is different, my authorial voice is different, my entire attitude changes. If you’re a crafter, maybe this will make sense: imagine knitting a sweater, and then crocheting one. Both times, you start with yarn and end up with clothing. But the stitches, the tools, and the directions are distinct. Even the way you hold the yarn changes. (Admittedly, I don’t enjoy crochet. This metaphor only works so far.) Using a pen name actually helps me shift my thinking as I write—it’s an outward symbol, but it still seems to reset my brain.

The other question my friends had, of course, was how I’d make the switch, particularly in cyberspace. Would Erica and Lucy have separate webpages? Twitter accounts? Facebook pages?

The answer was no, no, and definitely no. (I have three children, an elderly cat, and I’m a full-time author. Simple is the watchword at my house, whether we’re talking about author profiles or meal planning. We can talk about meal planning in the comments, if you like.)

Instead, I made four small changes:

• I had a new author picture taken—one that was considerably sunnier than my very dramatic young adult picture.  
• I added Lucy to my social media profiles, so they all say “Erica O’Rourke/Lucy Kerr.”
• I made sure LucyKerrBooks.com connected to EricaORourke.com.
• I had my graphic designer come up with a cute header for my newsletter incorporating both names. (and those author pics!) 

The result: Lucy Kerr and Erica O’Rourke peacefully coexist on the Internet and in my office. Unlike Batman and Bruce Wayne, you’ll often see us in the same room. And in the end, it doesn’t feel odd to have two writing names, because the stories I write and my connection to my readers doesn’t change, no matter what they call me.

The last question I get is a simple one: How’d I land on Lucy Kerr? I wish I had some sort of fancy story, but in fact, I went with old family names—and my grandfather’s love of Lucille Ball, which my children seem to have inherited, made Lucy the obvious choice.

If you could create a secret identity for yourself, who or what would you turn to for inspiration? 

HANK: And what name would you choose?
 Share it in the comments! (We promise not to tell.)

 Lucy Kerr is the pen name of Erica O'Rourke, an award-winning author of young adult fiction. Her debut adult mystery, TIME OF DEATH, launched with Crooked Lane Books on December 13, 2016. Lucy lives outside Chicago with her family, her cat, and many, many piles of books. She likes strong coffee, rainy days, old buildings, and fresh-baked cookies -- but she likes telling stories best of all.

TIME OF DEATH

 It’s been twelve years since ER nurse Frankie Stapleton fled her hometown, but with her sister’s pregnancy taking a dangerous turn and a string of failed relationships in Chicago hanging over her, Frankie is back–and hoping to put the past behind her. Within minutes of arriving at Stillwater General Hospital however, she ends up saving a man’s life, only to have him turn up dead hours later—and the hospital blames Frankie. With her career–and future–on life support, Frankie must catch a killer, clear her name, and heal the wounds of her past.

YAY for YA

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Raise your hand if you read YA. Yes, right? Everyone. (Almost, okay, maybe not everyone, but you get my point.) Okay, now, authors. Raise your hand if you’ve thought about writing a YA? Yes, right?  (I am trying to type and raise my hand at the same time.)

We know good YA when we read it, of course—does Edward Eager count? My FAVE--but what is it that makes it special?

Okay, read this:

A solar powered girl. A ballerina vigilante. A boy with an alien living inside his brain. A werewolf with confidence issues. A girl with a black hole for a heart. Five teenagers, each with their own unique abilities, are gathered by veteran hero Doc Silence to become their generation’s super-team.

Well, I’m sold. Instantly. This is from the debut novel of Matthew Phillion. (Who I’d certainly get to sit by if  life was alphabetical.) (And, who, see bio below, is pretty darn fabulous).

What does the author of THE INDESTRUCTIBLES  think is the key to YA? It’s—well, let him tell us.

YA and Crossover Appeal

    By Matthew Phillion

I’ve been asked a few times to describe the thought process of writing a YA book. The word I keep coming back to is “sophisticated.”

I don’t know if younger readers are more sophisticated now than they were twenty years ago. But they feel more worldly, and they feel more aware, and I knew the one thing I had to do was make sure I didn’t insult their intelligence with this story.

So I set rules for myself. Don’t insult their intelligence. Don’t play into gender stereotypes. Try not to swear. (I used that one a lot. I have a tendency toward blue language in my daily life, and it was a struggle to not let my young characters drop a curse word once in a while. Had a yellow Post-It over my desk to remind me.)

 YA fiction has always been, or the best of it has been, unafraid to dig into hard issues. Love and loss, political allegory, the sense of being a pawn in the bigger picture. They all share the same sense of wonder and the need to find one’s self, but the older I get, the more I think that finding one’s self isn’t just the purview of YA readers.

And that brings me to my other struggle as a YA writer—we no longer write for just that younger audience. Again, I can’t tell if it’s a sign of the times and that YA literature has needed to become more sophisticated and thus it’s become more attractive to older readers, or if some other factor is at play. I was chatting with another writer a few weeks back, a fellow occasional filmmaker, and he was pleading with the universe for pop culture to get off its superhero kick.

“This can’t go on forever, can it?” he asked.

Selfishly, I wouldn’t mind if it did go on forever. I’m a superhero writer, after all. But even before I put words on the page for The Indestructibles, I’d had a theory about this—the prevalence of adult audiences gravitating to YA novels like Harry Potter and Hunger Games, grown men and women lining up to see the X-Men and Captain America save the world.

I think our YA readers are more sophisticated, and our adult readers are drawn to the relative simplicity of YA fiction, in both cases due to the fact that we are living in such challenging times. I don’t have any hard evidence to back it up. But it is hard out there, and people are frustrated and scared and lonely. And for the young, these stories give them escapism and hope. For older readers, they are a window, if not into an easier time, then into a world where the challenges are still great but the solutions can be found in heroism and courage.

We face love and loss, we face political reality, we face villains on the evening news, and there are steps we can take to make things better… but in those quiet moments curled up with a good book, isn’t it more comforting to think these things could be fixed with a magic spell, or the power of flight, or simply having the courage to take up arms against a sea of trouble and make the world a better place?

I can see a time when YA fiction may not be so prevalent, or where adults might not seek solace so much in stories of adventure. I hope when we get there, it means we live in a place where we don’t need quite so many ways to escape.

Until then, well, up, up and away.

Is YA fiction on your radar as a reader? Do you find it has a different feel now than it did when you were a young reader?

HANK: And what are your favorite YA books? (What's the age of YA, anyway?) 

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A solar powered girl. A ballerina vigilante. A boy with an alien living inside his brain. A werewolf with confidence issues. A girl with a black hole for a heart. Five teenagers, each with their own unique abilities, are gathered by veteran hero Doc Silence to become their generation’s super-team.

But when they find out someone else is building their own monsters to change the world, will the Indestructibles be ready in time? Or will their inexperience be their downfall?

Matthew Phillion is a writer, actor, and film director based in Salem, Massachusetts.  He has also appeared in feature films including the sci-fi romance Harvest Moon and the independent horror flick Livestock, and his screenwriting and directing debut, the romantic comedy Certainly Never, premiered in 2013 at the Massachusetts Independent Film Festival, where it was nominated for five awards including best screenplay and best New England film. An active freelance writer, Phillion continues to write about both local issues and the medical industry. The Indestructibles is his first novel  (Ed. note: And he has a dog named Watson.)

http://www.theindestructiblesbook.com/