C.E. Murphy?
So I’m working on this book submission for a writing contest, and I have as usual seized up when it comes to the ‘by’ part. I have this very fine name here at my disposal: Catherine Eileen Murphy. I thought for a long time that Catherine E. Murphy would look splendid on a book cover.
Except when people see the name Catherine, they diminutize it to Cathy, and I truly hate being called Cathy. Of all the diminutives of Catherine that there are, I *really* loathe that one. It’s a fine name for other people, but it’s *not* my name and I *hate* being called by it.
So that makes me want to avoid Catherine.
Catie Murphy is what I’m really called, of course, but that just doesn’t look very grown-up after the ‘by’.
Laura has suggested — no, I stand corrected; Ben, Laura’s SO who doesn’t have a webpage, has suggested C.E. Murphy.
I’m looking at that on this title page thing.
I’m thinking, you know, I kind of like that. That looks pretty good. C.E. Murphy. Yeah.
6 Comments
mary anne
and using your first initials has a fine heritage:
e.l. doctorow
c.j. cherryh
e.m. forster
t.c. boyle
e.e. cummings
and there’s a long litany of other authors who’s names are just on the tip of tongue, but apparently not in the accessible part of my brain this late on a friday afternoon.
it’s also a venerable tactic for women writers electing to avoid controversy or assumptions about their material based on the author’s gender……
mary anne
BTW, Give The Laura big hugs for me? Tell her she’s way cool and ain’t being gradu-muated all kinds of niftiness and a huge relief!
jai
I like C.E. Murphy . . . it belongs on a book. But not “By Kit Murphy”?
kit
Nah. Kit’s not my name. :) I mean, overlooking the minor details that at least half the people I know call me Kit, that I respond to it, that I sometimes refer to myself by it, and that my website is based around it, Kit is not my name. *laugh*
‘Kit Murphy’ has always looked amazingly wrong to me; I think of the full name as being Kit Ellis, which is the name of the character I got the alias from.
If I were going for a one-syllable front name, I’d use Cate. In which case I would probably use Cate Malone, which was my grandmother’s name, and which I think is a very fine name. Murphy isn’t a terribly euphonious name, when you get right down to it.
But I think I’m quite keen on this C.E. Murphy thing. :)
monymony
I would by a romance novel written by Cate Malone. :)
monymony
Your comments thing hates me. hate hate hates me.