So, here I am, trying to (re)break into the print world. Now, typically, I would go off on a tangent here about how lonely the publishing world is. But is it possible that there are two of me?
Not exactly, it turns out, but I was surprised to find another C.C. Russell out there a couple of weeks ago. I was bing-ing my name (googling is a much better verb, but I'm a cheapskate and I like getting gift cards for doing searches, so I stick to Bing) as any vain author would do to see if my recent story publications were out there yet. I found that if you don't modify the search (I usually search for C.C. Russell poetry or C.C. Russell fiction or somesuch), the first entry that pops up is:
C.C. Russell, author of Beautifully Broken
Hmmm. Well, while that sounds a bit like a title I would have used in the 90's (Who am I kidding? I'd probably still use it...), I didn't write it. But... but... OK, I admit - as silly as it sounds, it was a little bit of a crushing moment. Ever since I started using C.C. as my pen name in '92 (Thanks, Jen.), I've been looking forward to seeing just that: C.C. Russell, Author of... Honestly, it kind of sucked to have it be someone else (absolutely no offense to that other C.C. Russell out there - kudos to you.) and it made me sort of have an existential "name" moment. Should I give up on the initials and just go by Craig? Come up with a different pen name entirely? Certainly, I'm at a point of fame (or lack thereof) that any options are really possible. While I've published poetry and stories here and there for a couple of decades (Holy crap, I'm old), it has been many years since my last chapbook was availably for anyone to purchase.
I ended up really considering the whys of C.C. I started out using it because it sounded more "writerly" to me, as silly and basic as that is. Quickly, though, it became more. As I took gender studies classes and read books like Jeanette Winterson's amazing Written on the Body, I became more and more interested in gender as an author and how your characters are seen based on the gender that readers attribute to the author of a piece. I enjoyed writing stories with female narrators or with characters of an indeterminate gender. Leaving my name genderless, I felt, brought less "baggage" to those characters and stories. (It was also interesting to see what editors and other writers who first met me through my words expected me to be.) It did create a couple of awkward moments (I was invited to contribute to a couple of women's writing anthologies in the mid to late '90s, which I definitely took as a compliment), and I never seemed comfortable with people calling me "C.C." in person. It almost created a second identity for me and I have found that to be both useful and off-putting at times.
I strongly considered dumping C.C. and going less formal. Craig Thompson and his most-incredible graphic novel Blankets taught me that it's ok to write under that name, after all. But in the end, I've decided that I'm sticking with it, keeping the pen name. Hopefully, there's room for two C.C. Russells in the author world.
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