Why I’m Dropping My Penname
BY GREGORY HEDGEPETH
A few years ago, I adopted a new penname: Garvey Hemisphere. It was representative of my transition from GHDOS, a moniker I’d adopted because of my online presence, back when I was still on Tumblr and writing my own brand of erotic poetry. It was also intended to give credence to my new writings under Vital Narrative and start a new lineage like my pennames of the past: verBose and weLLSaiD.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to do nearly as much writing as I planned under Garvey Hemisphere. In fact, besides a handful of poems, there wasn’t much new writing to speak of at all. Hemisphere essentially just replaced the previous names on all my old book covers, but I never really flourished writing-wise, because I simply didn’t have the time.
That all changed with A Strange Fascination With Violence, which brings us to the present-day. I’ve always shied away from sharing my work with other people who knew me personally. I was nervous if they’d be judgmental of the subject matter, but also wanted my writing to stand on its own merits. I didn’t want anyone to support my work just because they knew who I was.
Now that I’m a little older and wiser, I realize how foolish that is and I’m ready to accept everything that comes with it. In the words of the homie Marlo, my name is my name. And my name is Gregory Hedgepeth.
Unfortunately, it’s going to take some time to complete the full transition, but I’m excited about this next step in my writing career.
Gregory Hedgepeth is the editor-in-chief of Vital Narrative Press. You can follow him on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Feel free to follow on all three. Or maybe just two. Yeah, two’s probably good — he’s not that interesting. Gregory Hedgepeth is also the author of MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SUNRISES, THE YEAR THAT ANSWERED and A COLLECTION OF ECHOES. BUY THAT SHIT.