Due to various social, legal and stereotypical climates, women writers have historically written under pen names. Listed are some distinguished women writers who, for various reasons, wrote undercover or attempted to deceive their audience. Keep in the mind the question, why are women in the 21st century still writing under pseudonyms?
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Harriet Adams wrote the Nancy Drew series, a few books in the Hardy Boys series, and some 200 books during her literary career.
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In 1981, Carolyn Cherry wrote Downbelow Station, a Hugo Award wining work of science fiction. Cherry decided to publish under the pen name C. J. Cherryh to avoid having her name look and sound like a romance writer’s name.
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Writers S. E. Hinton, author of the Outsiders (1967) and J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series used this same method, fearing that their work wouldn’t be taken seriously with a feminine name printed on the covers of their books.
J.K. Rowling is arguably the single most successful female novelist of our time. I wonder if and how her reception would have been different if Joanne Rowling was on the first cover of Harry Potter and the Sorcer’s Stone.
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