AKA Elizabeth Allred

Why I sometimes write with a pen name

My fascination with identity

My fascination with identity started in childhood. I was always changing names with my best friend, Angie Kelley. We would swap shoes and pretend to be each other. I’m not sure how we decided changing shoes made us turn into each other, but that’s what we did. I always had more fun on the days I was Angie.

I grew up and stopped pretending I was Angie. I started being plain Jane, 24/7.

About 14 years ago, I began working at Target and was forced to wear a name tag on a daily basis. I hated the constant reminder that I was plain Jane.

Day after day, I put Jane on my shirt and walked around with no one reading the tag or acknowledging who I was. It seemed pointless.

One day I forgot my name tag. I dug through a drawer full of name tags of people who haven’t worked in our store since it opened and found Autumn. We use old name tags occasionally when someone forgets their own tag, then we throw them back in the drawer at the end of the day.

No one currently working there knew who Autumn was. It was September, so I thought, why not? It will be fun. I slapped Autumn on my shirt and went about my day.

Autumn

It didn’t take long before a guest needed help.

Normally the interaction goes something like this:

“Do you work here?”

“Yes, I do,” I said, holding back an eye roll. I’m dressed in red and khaki, wearing a Target name tag, putting prices on boxes. Of course I work here.

“Can I help you find something?” slips by habit through a smile. It’s not a fake smile. I’m smiling because I’m thinking, Nope. I just had some extra price tags and I thought I’d bring them to Target and put them on all the packages. Here’s your sign.

“Could you help me with the toasters?”

“Sure thing,” I say, holding back, It’s a toaster. Put in bread. Push a button. Toast comes out. Pick one.

That was Jane.

Today I’m Autumn and the transaction went like this:

“Excuse me, Autumn.”

I freeze like a deer in the headlights.

I hesitantly say, “Can I help you find something?”

“Yes, please. I need some help picking out a coffee maker.”

“Absolutely!”

I spend ten minutes with this woman, reading boxes and discussing features and options. Then she says, “Thank you so much for all your help, Autumn. That’s such a beautiful name.”

She leaves with a Keurig in her red plastic shopping cart and a smile on her face. And mine.

I thought it was a fluke. A chance encounter.

I wore the Autumn tag again the next day and similar encounters continued to occur. Everyone called me by name. In six years, no guest had ever called me Jane, and here I was being referred to as Autumn multiple times each day.

I kept wearing the name tag.

It was a fun two months. Other employees began calling me Autumn, always with a smile. I felt like a person. A real person.

That’s what led me to order Holly.

Holly

Holly brought a new type of interaction, which I didn’t expect.

Elderly folks would stop me while I was working, not to ask for help, but simply to talk to me.

“Holly,” they would say. “I have a granddaughter named Holly.”

“That’s the perfect name for the season!”

“Were you born on Christmas day?”

“Merry Christmas, Holly!”

Jane

After Christmas I returned to being Jane. No one spoke to me. No one called me by name.

One day a guest came in and asked to speak to Autumn. When another employee directed her to me, she said, “I am looking for Autumn.”

“That’s me.”

“No. Autumn is a younger girl with long brown hair. She’s so sweet and she always helps me.”

Yes. Autumn had helped her multiple times. I had helped her multiple times. She could not make the connection.

That’s when I realized people form different impressions of others, simply based on names.

My appearance hadn’t changed. Same hair. Same glasses. Same red and khaki.

She saw Jane, and was certain I couldn’t be Autumn.

I helped her, as nicely as Autumn always had, but she wasn’t buying that I was Autumn. The interaction was very cold on her part. It didn’t end with a “thank you so much, Autumn,” or a “thank you, Jane.” It ended with no thank you at all. I never saw her again.

I was shocked.

Names are important.

Choosing a pen name

When I began writing my book, I put some thought into my name.

I googled Jane Kelley — my legal name — and found she was an established children’s book author. My subject matter isn’t really appropriate for children, since I write a lot about abuse. I didn’t want a kid to pull my book off the shelf expecting to find a fun story to read and be shocked by the reality of child abuse.

I chose Elizabeth Allred.

Elizabeth is my middle name. I had been called by Elizabeth by all my relatives growing up, so it was natural to choose to be Elizabeth. Sometimes when I’m writing I feel like I am Elizabeth the child and not Jane the adult. Words and emotions come easily to Elizabeth. Jane writes very technically.

As for the Allred, well, I was previously married to an Allred. I don’t want to be an Allred, but I want to be all read. What a fun name for an author.

That’s how I came up with my pen name.

I’m not hiding so that no one will know my identity. I’m not ashamed of who I am or what I write about. I simply feel more comfortable writing some things as Jane and other things as Elizabeth.

I joined Medium as Jane. I’ve posted on here as Jane, but some of what I have posted, I wrote as Elizabeth.

I’m curious if my readers have ever noticed a difference in my writing from one piece to the next, or if it’s just my imagination. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I’m on Twitter as Jane Kelley. You can follow me there with this link: https://twitter.com/kitiraaumara

I have started an author page on face book as Elizabeth Allred. If you follow my link, you’ll end up on Elizabeth’s page. Jane does not do Facebook. You can join me there as I begin to build that page: https://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.allred.944

In the mean time, I’ll be here as Jane Kelley, writing sometimes as Jane, sometimes as Elizabeth, but always from the heart.