Animating creative selves

Pen names as property in the careers of Canadian and American romance writers

Bibliographic Data

ID2261064
AuthorsJessica Taylor (0000-0002-4897-3392, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume45
Issue1
Pages112-123
Publication date2018-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Ethnologist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0094-0496 • E-ISSN: 1548-1425
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/amet.12603
OpenAlexW2791656533
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited28

Most romance writers in Canada and the United States in the first decade of the 21st century wrote under at least one, and as many as three or four, pen names. In doing so, they typified the ideal of a middle-class worker who is both a business and a brand. Yet writers went beyond the singular branded self to develop multiple brand names. Prompted by publishers, writers developed pen names as forms of property that, like brands, could be used to mediate between producer and consumer. These newly developed properties were created according to specifications that reflected the gendered and racialized structure of mass-market publishing. This process of property creation and animation was imagined to create value for writers and publishers in an uncertain, recession-era economy. [authors, branding, gender, labor, romance, United States, Canada

Advertising · Animation · Art · Brand names · Business · Ideal (ethics · Literature · Political science · Property (philosophy · Publishing · Romance · Sociology · Value (mathematics · Comics and Graphic Narratives · Computer Science · History · Law · Media, Gender, and Advertising · Philosophy · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism