Female writers

My dreams got crushed in high school.

All my life, I wanted to be a writer. I told fantasy stories to my grandparents in their backyard when I was about seven. By the time I was in fourth grade, I tried writing my first novel in a Pirates of the Caribbean journal. (I never did finish that one.) I brainstormed tons of novel ideas by the time I was in middle school. I finished my first novel as a sophomore in high school.

But the world came crashing down after that.

When I was a junior in high school, I sat at the restaurant with my friend Lily and her family. As usual, I stuffed the appetizer—French bread—into my mouth before our meal came.

Lily’s dad turned to me with a grin. “It’s great that you write books.” His hands spread out wide as he spoke. “Are you going to publish soon?”

I nodded. “I want to publish before I graduate college.”

“Awesome!” He seemed more excited about this than me. The idea of publishing was still a star-in-the-lights dream to me at the time. I wanted it, but I didn’t know if it could be real. “What are you going to change your name to when you publish?”

I don’t remember what I did exactly, but I must’ve paused. I didn’t take another bite of my bread. I glared up at him with curious eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Well, no one buys books from female writers. Are you going to go by R. K—?* Or R. L. K—?”

Lily, who had somehow read more books than me, nodded along with him. “Her first name should work. Robin can be a male or female name. She can go by Robin K—.”

“But I don’t like my last name,” I blurted out.

Everyone except Lily turned to me as if I had lost my mind. Lily knew the truth though. She had seen how much personal stress my last name brought me over the years.

“Can’t I go by Robin? Or Robin LeeAnn?”

Her dad huffed. “Guys won’t buy your books then.”

I never thought it could be a problem. A name. Why would people hate me enough to never consider my books because of my gender?

Of course, I researched it when I got home. The sexism was true. Many personal blogs said that publishing companies turned them down because of gender. Some had never gotten published no matter how much they tried. They wrote their lives away online instead.

Many female writers have changed their names. Louisa May Alcott became A. M. Barnard. Mary Ann Evans became George Eliot. Nelle Harper Lee became Harper Lee. Nora Roberts became J. D. Robb and several other pen names. Joanne Rowling became J. K. Rowling.

The thought bewildered me. I would never refuse to buy good food from a cook because he was male. I would never not accept help from a nurse because he was male. Why would it matter if I wrote a book and was a female?

Needless to say, the idea confused me for years. It wasn’t until college that I decided I wasn’t going to let sexism control me.

If people feed sexist people what they want by changing their names, nothing will change. We’d still have a dominance of male names on the bookshelves.

I won’t let them control me.

So, here I am. Robin LeeAnn. Critique me on my writing ability. Not my gender.

*I don’t want my last name public for personal reasons, so I took it out of the story.