RARA-AVIS: Aleas alias

From: hardcasecrime ( editor@hardcasecrime.com)
Date: 23 Oct 2004


Mark wrote:

> I'm always curious how writers
> choose the pen names they do. So
> now that yours is out in the
> open, where'd Richard Aleas come
> from?

It's an anagram of my real name, "Charles Ardai"; the last name starts with the same letter as "Ardai," so books published under the two names can be shelved near each other; and of course it's pronounced "Alias," which is fun.

As for why I chose to publish LITTLE GIRL LOST under a pseudonym in the first place, it's a tip of the hat to the great pulp tradition. I also found it liberating. When I write under my own name, I find I agonize over every sentence, and part of the point of writing a pulp novel was to race from start to finish in a white-hot, bill-collector- at-the-door fury, just like in the old penny-a-word days. Creating what my partner, Max Phillips, calls a "nom de pulp" helped get me into the right mindset.

--Charles

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