What are your thoughts about authors using pseudonyms in place of their real names?
Also, if you can think of one, list an author who uses a pen name to mask his/her true identity. I’ll go first. Robin Hobb’s real name is Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden. From 1983 to 1992, she actually wrote under the pseudonym Megan Lindholm. In 1995, she began using Robin Hobb for her epic fantasy novels.
Best-selling fantasy author Terry Goodkind is switching publishers from Tor to Putnam for a new three book deal. Goodkind has been with Tor for a long time but decided to make the switch because he and his agent, Russell Galen, felt Putnam could get them into wider markets. The three books will be mainstream fiction, not fantasy, and they will not be part of a series. Tor, who has published Goodkind’s novels for many years, is also the publisher of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. It will be interesting to see how this new venture and new genre works out for Goodkind.
Read the article: Terry Goodkind Moves to Putnam for Three-Book Deal
George Raymond Richard Martin, well-known author of the fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, on September 20, 1948. Martin attended Mary Jane Donohoe School and Marist High School. His writing career began at a young age when he would write and sell stories about monsters for pennies to children in his neighborhood. While in high school, he became a fan of comic book collecting, and he would write fiction for comic fanzines. “The Hero,” sold to Galaxy magazine and published in the February 1971 issue, was the first story he sold in his professional career. Martin was age 21.
Martin earned his B.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University in 1970, graduating summa cum laude, and he also earned his M.S. in Journalism from Northwestern in 1971. From 1976 – 1978, he taught journalism at Clarke College in Dubuque, Iowa, while continuing to write on the side. Martin married in 1975 but was divorced four years later, the same year he decided to take on writing full-time.
Martin later moved to Hollywood, and in 1986, became a story editor for the Twilight Zone at CBS Television. A year later — still with CBS — he signed on as Executive Story Consultant for Beauty and the Beast, being promoted to Co-Supervising Producer in 1989. In the early ’90s, Martin wrote a pilot called Doorways for Columbia Pictures Television. In 1996, Bantam Books published the first installment, A Game of Thrones, in his A Song of Ice and Fire series. Ever since, Martin has arguably become the most popular author in the fantasy genre, writing three additional novels in the series with three more to come.
A Song of Ice and Fire series:
Read Martin’s entire bibliography on his Web site.
Martin currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His next novel, A Dance with Dragons, the fifth book in A Song of Ice and Fire, is planned for release later this summer or early fall.
Follow news about George R.R. Martin on his blog.
I thought I would start a series of author profiles, highlighting a new author each week. The profiles are intended to give you some background information about each author: where they grew up, how they got started, what they’ve written, things of that nature. I thought I would start with Bernard Cornwell, since he’s my favorite.
Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell, an English novelist of historical fiction, was born in London on February 23, 1944. His father was a Canadian airman, and his mother was a member of Britain’s Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. He was adopted and raised in Essex by a strict Protestant religious group known as the Peculiar People, but he later left them and went to London University and changed his last name to his mother’s maiden name, Cornwell. He taught school for a while and then later went to work for BBC Television, where he stayed for the next ten years. His career began as a researcher on the Nationwide Programme, and he worked his way up to Head of Current Affairs Television for the BBC in Northern Ireland. He met his wife, Judy (an American), during his time in Ireland.
In 1980, Bernard and Judy married, and they moved to the United States. While there, the U.S. government denied him his Green Card, and so he began to write in order to earn a living, as he did not need a permit to do so.
And so the Sharpe Series was born.
Cornwell began writing a series of novels following a British rifleman (Richard Sharpe) through the various major battles of the Peninsular War. He began with the novels Sharpe’s Eagle and Sharpe’s Gold, both published in 1981.
Cornwell and wife Judy co-write a series of novels, published under the pseudonym Susannah Kells. A Crowning Mercy was published in 1983, Fallen Angels in 1984, and Coat of Arms (aka The Aristocrats) in 1986.
After writing and publishing eight Sharpe novels, Cornwell was approached by a production company with the idea of adapting the novels for television. Sharpe’s Rifles was published in 1987 along with a series of Sharpe television films featuring Sean Bean.
Cornwell is currently working on a new work titled Azincourt. It is slated for release in the UK in October 2008.
Novels by Cornwell:
* 1981 – Sharpe’s Eagle and Sharpe’s Gold
* 1982 – Sharpe’s Company
* 1983 – Sharpe’s Sword, Sharpe’s Enemy and A Crowning Mercy
* 1984 – Fallen Angels
* 1985 – Sharpe’s Honour
* 1986 – Sharpe’s Regiment and Coat of Arms (aka The Aristocrats)
* 1987 – Sharpe’s Siege and Redcoat
* 1988 – Sharpe’s Rifles and Wildtrack
* 1989 – Sharpe’s Revenge and Sea Lord (aka Killer’s Wake)
* 1990 – Sharpe’s Waterloo and Crackdown
* 1991 – Stormchild
* 1992 – Sharpe’s Devil and Scoundrel
* 1993 – Rebel
* 1994 – Copperhead
* 1995 – Sharpe’s Battle, Battle Flag and The Winter King
* 1996 – The Bloody Ground and Enemy of God
* 1997 – Sharpe’s Tiger and Excalibur: A Novel of Arthur
* 1998 – Sharpe’s Triumph
* 1999 – Sharpe’s Fortress and Stonehenge: A Novel of 2000 BC
* 2000 – Harlequin (aka The Archer’s Tale)
* 2001 – Sharpe’s Trafalgar and Gallows Thief
* 2002 – Sharpe’s Prey, Sharpe’s Skirmish and Vagabond
* 2003 – Sharpe’s Havoc, Sharpe’s Christmas and Heretic
* 2004 – Sharpe’s Escape and The Last Kingdom
* 2005 – The Pale Horseman
* 2006 – Sharpe’s Fury and The Lords of the North
* 2007 – Sword Song
* 2008 – Azincourt