A
few weeks ago, a good friend called to tell me she’d been reading my columns and thought it was so important that I was opening up a discussion of issues not often raised in a public forum.
Then she asked a question that gave me pause: Why was I using my name? Why not publish the same material anonymously or, at the very least, under a pseudonym?
I replied that I’d never thought not to use my name. But I struggled to unpack her question. I doubt she would’ve asked the same question about my other publications, a nonfiction book about literature and numerous articles — most of which, but not all — appeared in scholarly journals and, in one instance, in a collection of essays.
The question might conceivably have been raised — but in fact was not — when I published a novel about caregiving, grief, and the renewal of the self after traumatic loss. Set on an urban college campus, Griefwriting is about a recently widowed professor who teaches a therapeutic writing course. It never occurred to me not to use my real name, but that was a novel, after all, a work of fiction.
