K. Marvin Bruce

  Scholars have a fancy name for ancient texts that claim to have been written by someone who clearly isn’t the author.   The word is “pseudepigrapha.”   It’s a way of admitting that we know who didn’t write something, but we’re not fooled by the attribution. The modern equivalent, to some extent, is the pseudonym.   The pen name.   Nom de plume.   Nom de guerre.   Assumed name.   Alias.   Most pen names can be traced to an author’s real name by those very interested.   Even famous writers use them.   For many reasons. Stephen King, for instance, even after becoming famous, has written under a pen name from time-to-time.   And J. K. Rowling used her initials so that it wouldn’t be obvious she was a woman.   Those of us who make a living doing something else sometimes use pseudonyms because of our jobs.   That’s why I do it. Now that my first novel is under contract with Parisian Phoenix, I’ve been thinking about the ...

  There’s no feeling like it.   Finishing a story that you know is good.   You’re ready to send it to a publisher right away.   But then you hesitate. You’ve received so many rejection notes but each one stabs you afresh when another one comes.   Still, you know this story’s good.   You’ve managed to do something different than you usually do.   Will they, can they appreciate it for what it is? I’ve managed to have thirty stories published—averaging one per every two years I’ve been on this planet.   The rejection numbers are beyond a one-to-one correspondence.   And yet, I know this story’s good. Fiction publishing’s all about convincing some editor you don’t know that you do know.   You know your own writing.   I write many stories that aren’t publishable.   Writing’s that way.   When I do manage a good one I’m like a kid on Christmas morning. It takes thick skin, they say, to be a writer.   My question is should it...

Unless you’re sexy, or already well-connected, the internet feels like high school all over again.  You want to be noticed, but you’re insecure, a bit shy, and lacking self-confidence.  You try putting yourself out there only to be rejected, and you crawl back into your book, where you feel safe. You’d think that the trauma, after all these years, might diminish a little.  Maybe it does for some people.  My career has turned into a train wreck and my efforts as a fiction writer haven’t exactly been welcomed with open arms.  But, I understand, one must build a platform. I have another life on the internet.  One where I don’t use a pen name.  In that internet world, where I’ve actually published two non-fiction books, nobody pays me much mind.  I’ve got a blog, a Twitter account, and a Goodreads account.  I tried to grow my Twitter following, and it has been very slow going. As K. Marvin Bruce, I also have this blog and a Twi...

Confession, they say, is good for the soul.  So I’m over fifty and haven’t broken through to the paid writers’ club.  I write under a pseudonym.  I love taboo topics. To be a writer, I’m told, you have to get out and promote your stuff.  I wonder how you do that with a false identity.  Mine is a matter of necessity.  Although I’m half-a-century on, I have family members way ahead of me.  They don’t know what I do with my free time. My family tend to be conservative Christians.  There are some words I’ve never heard uttered in my humble homestead.  Words that, if you want to be a realistic writer, you’ve got to use.  Not to mention the ideas that the Bible strictly forbids. I live in my head.  My daily existence is unremarkable.  That’s one reason that I write.  The other day I was reading about some people, in real life, stranded in an isolated location.  They had to do what they could to survive.  A...