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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!

  • 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. :)

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