You may have noticed in the title of my blog that I use ALL of my names. When I first began publishing a poem here and there I thought long and hard about what name I wanted to publish under and ultimately decided to use ’em all. I do freelance writing as Sarah Thomas, but for fiction and poetry I use Sarah Anne Loudin Thomas.
I recognize that there are some potential down sides to this. If and when I have a book published there will be the quandary over where to shelve it–under L for Loudin or T for Thomas. I’ll take my agent/editor/publisher’s advice on that one. I’m also aware that it may simply seem a little over the top to use all of my names–a tad pompous, even.
But here’s the thing. All of those names are really important to me. Sarah–that’s me, so obviously I’m going to use that. Anne–that’s my mom’s and my great aunt’s middle name (and if everything works out, there could be a niece with that middle name)–can’t leave that out. Loudin–that’s my dad and his family. It’s who I was until my husband came along. And Thomas is who I chose to be when I chose the most wonderful man for my husband. SO. I’ll use ’em all.
And as a bonus, there’s this really cool little quirk. My initials spell SALT. There are some very nice Bible references to salt–the salt of the earth–being salt and light to non-believers. Cool, right? Well check this out. My mom’s initials are NACL. If you think back to chemistry class and write that like this–NaCl–you have sodium chloride otherwise known as . . . table salt . . .
Yup. I’m keeping them all.