women pioneers

ALSO KNOWN AS…

Posted on by vlaw759
These pen names are fairly self-explanatory.

Is there anyone out there who didn’t know that Vivian Lawry is the pen name of Vivian Makosky? Well, now you do. 

There are many reasons why an author might choose to use a pen name. Particularly fancy authors might even use a nom de plume.

To Share Credit

Lawry Gulick,
in his natural habitat

My first attempt at writing fiction was the Chesapeake Bay Mystery Dark Harbor.  The plot required a lot more knowledge of sailing than I possessed, and so I started working with a coauthor, Lawry Gulick. Most fiction books are not (obviously) coauthored, so we took the pen name Vivian Lawry.

When I started submitting short stories, I asked Lawry whether it was okay for me to use that pen name. He said, “Sure. This is the only fiction I’ll ever write.”

People more often than not mispronounce and/or misspell Makosky anyway. My professional (psychological) publications are by Vivian Makosky, and using a pen name for fiction allows me to separate the genres.

By the time Dark Harbor saw the light of day, I’d published numerous short stories as Vivian Lawry. Publishing the novel as Vivian Lawry would feel like plagiarism, as if I was claiming to be the sole author of the mystery. Hence, it ended up being coauthored after all, by Vivian Lawry and W. Lawrence Gulick.

The Real Michael Field

Little did we know that shared pen names have been around for awhile. 

  • Katherine Harris Bradley and her niece, Edith Emma Cooper, shared the pen name Michael Field, as well as what appeared to be a lesbian relationship for more than forty years. 
  • Meg Howrey and Christina Lynch shared the pen name Magnus Flyte.

Perhaps they chose male pen names for marketing reasons as well.

To Bypass Gender Stereotypes

Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë as painted by their brother Branwell

Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë wrote as Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell because, according to Charlotte, “…we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice.” 

Many other women have written under men’s names in order to get published and/or to be taken seriously.

To Jump Genres

Yet another reason to adopt a pen name is to publish in very different genres.

  • The Cuckoo’s Calling
  • Joanne Rowling has used pennames to confront both of these issues in the publishing world.
    • Her editor suggested that a fantasy series published by a woman would only appeal to a female audience, so JK Rowling published the Harry Potter series and all the other books in the “Potterverse“
    • She switched to Robert Galbraith for her 2013 crime mystery, The Cuckoo’s Calling
  • Louisa May Alcott published Little Women under her given name
    • She used the name AM Barnard to write gothic thrillers with unladylike subject matter
  • Nora Roberts a.k.a. JD Robb
    • When writing romance, she’s Nora Roberts
    • When writing futuristic suspense, she becomes JD Robb 
  • Karen Blixen (Out of Africa) also used many pen names
    • Isak Dinesen published Seven Gothic Tales 
    • Pierre Andrézel, The Angelic Avengers
    • In German-speaking countries, she is sometimes published as Tania Blixen
Fantasy and science fiction are still heavily male-dominated genres.

Indeed, many publishers advise writers established in one genre to take a different name for a different genre so as not to confuse or frustrate loyal readers.

To Improve Marketing

PD James, aka
Phyllis Dorothy James White,
Baroness James of Holland Park

And not to be overlooked, some authors choose a pen name or use only initials purely for marketing purposes. Besides JK Rowling and PD James, consider these three:

For more on this topic, pick up Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Psuedonyms  by Carmela Ciuraru. That’s not a pen name – the author really is named Carmela Ciuraru.

Downside of Pen Names 

Ghostwriting is not quite the same as using a pen name.

Yes, there is a downside. If one chooses to keep two (or more) writing names, and to keep them separate, it multiplies the workload: separate blogs, separate websites, separate social media accounts…  

And one can’t handily promote the other!

For those of us who have a “private” name and a pen name, visibility is often lost: people know me as one or the other. In spite of leakage over time, personal friends and family members sometimes forget my pen name, and often haven’t “liked” Vivian Lawry’s Facebook page. Thus, they don’t keep up with publications, talks, etc., even though they might be some of the best word-of-mouth advertising.

Bottom line: Think carefully before taking a pen name.

The Domino Effect

Posted on by vlaw759

Today’s blog entry was written by Kathleen Corcoran, a local harpist, writer, editor, ESL teacher, luthier, favorite auntie, turtle lover, canine servant, and female of the species.

In honor of Women’s History Month, I’d like to tell you a story of how one woman sparked a series of interactions that led to rock stars! And none of these interactions would have been possible without women pioneers making history.

Alice Chalifoux, the “godmother to the Harp World” was the principle harpist with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra from 1931 to 1974. For decades, she was the only woman in the Orchestra. Because she couldn’t share the dressing room with her male colleagues, she used to shut herself in her harp’s traveling case to change into concert dress.

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Way back in the 1990s, there was a little girl who took harp lessons at her local middle school. She rented a small harp over the summer and brought it home to practice.

Deborah Hansen-Conant, “the Jimi Hendrix of the harp,” is an amazingly unorthodox harpist, the only person I’ve ever seen able to sing, dance, and play her harp all at the same time. She worked with the CAMAC Harp Company to design and create her signature 11lb, carbon-fiber, electric harp.

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That little girl was my neighbor and a few years older than me. She was the absolute coolest person I knew (as all the Big Girls were). Not only did she let me listen to her practice, she let me play a few notes!

Mary Jane D’Arville, in addition to teaching harp in public schools, founded the Virginia Harp Center. With locations up and down the East Coast now, the Harp Centers provide rental harps for students who could not otherwise afford them. Not content with being a superhero to every harpist with a bent stand or broken string from Boston to Miami, she also composes and arranges music for harp and harp ensembles, teaches privately, performs, and organizes music festivals.

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Obviously, the best way to be as cool as The Big Girls is to copy what they do. As soon as I was able, I joined the same harp program through our school system.

The Harp in Our Public Schools Project recently released a DVD of their performance of “Dona Nobis Pace.”

Talented, determined women (and a few men) have created harp programs in public school systems all over the country. Velma Froude in Detroit, Anne Williams and Jackie Pates in Richmond VA, Robbin Gordon-Cartier in East Orange NJ, and Lou Anne Neill in Los Angeles CA are just a few of the ladies who have made the harp available to kids who never would have seen one otherwise.

Playing the harp was so much fun that I decided to keep it up in college. The only problem with the college I’d chosen was that there was no harp program and no harp teacher.

In addition to chairing the School of Music and conducting the orchestra where I studied, Dr. Oeida Hatcher is a leading researcher in methods of joining computer science and music education. She is a guest conductor and lecturer, presenting her findings all over the world.

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Fortunately, the Chair of School of Music where I studied liked the idea of a harp program at school. She found a qualified harp teacher in the area, convinced her to drive an hour to the college to teach me, and then informed me that I would be declaring my major as Music Performance.

Edna Philips was the first female principal musician in a major American Symphony, specifically the Philadelphia Philharmonic. You may recognize her silhouette from Disney’s Fantasia.

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I was the best student in the harp program! I was also the worst student in the harp program. As far as I know, I am still the only student to have been in the harp program! My new teacher was from Los Angeles, and her style was unlike anything I’d ever played. She taught me to play whole new genres of music as well as the business of being a musician. (For example, if you’re driving down the LA Freeway with your harp in the passenger seat of your convertible, make sure to buckle it in securely.)

Dorothy Ashby was one of the first musicians to see the potential of the harp as more than a background, classical instrument. She was possibly the most influential jazz harpists of all time, establishing the possibilities of the harp in bebop, jazz, jazz improv, and blues.

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My glamorous Hollywood harp teacher had lots of glamorous Hollywood friends, one of whom worked for a sound engineering firm. Her job was to connect filmmakers with people who create music for films. Without music, movies are surprisingly boring. Without that 2 note foreboding theme in the background, “Jaws” is just a big fish with extra pointy bits.

Ruth Brown earned the titles “Miss Rhythm” and “Queen of R&B” as one of the best-selling singers and songwriters of the century. She leveraged her fame to force the recording industry to acknowledge the rights of musicians in negotiating royalties. She created the Rhythm and Blues Foundation to assist other musicians who were in need of assistance in negotiations.

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This woman who knew everyone involved in making music in Hollywood came to visit my harp teacher one day. The woman in charge of all music at my college invited her to present a lecture on the business of music in film.

Germaine Tailleferre, a French musician, is believed to be the first woman to compose a score for film. In 1931, she wrote “Chiens” a piano piece to accompany the silent documentary film Pastorale Inca. Ninety years later, 94 percent of composers for major films are men.

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It was a fascinating lecture. The presenter talked about how directors and producers choose the composer for a film, how music is played and recorded for films, how editors match musical timing to visual timing, and how sound engineers adjust the soundtrack, dialogue, sound effects, and background noise so that each scene creates the desired aural effect.

Rachel Portman was the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Film Score (Emma, 1996). In 2014, the Alliance for Women Film Composers was created to provide opportunities and visibility for female musicians who are still woefully underrepresented in cinema.

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After the lecture, a student hung around to talk to the presenter. She was a computer science student, and she was interested in the possibilities of sound engineering, particularly for live shows. They exchanged business cards and contact information.

Rozenn Nicol is a sound research engineer specializing in spatial audio. She has been instrumental in developing the technology used in binaural recordings, WFS, and ambisonics. And she plays the harp!

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My glamorous Hollywood harp teacher later told me that the computer science student who came to that lecture had gone to Los Angeles. She was interning with a sound design company, learning how to create the perfect sound in huge concert venues for rock stars.

Virginia Schweninger has been instrumental in the field of music therapy, researching the physical effects of harp string and soundboard vibration on the human body. She is also the creator of Harp Camp Virginia, a sleep-away summer camp for harpists that I can’t wait to attend!

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Bottom Line: An amazing chain of events can be set in motion by the simplest things, such as a little girl practicing on a rented harp.

110 Women Composers
How many do you recognize?