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author

also, if you live in NYC and can't afford a copy, let me know! I have a zillion extra author copies and I will leave one a safe distance from your door!

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May 25, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

"If anyone has any advice or thoughts on the matter, I’d certainly welcome it! Not in a “pick my work name” sense, of course – that’s a bit much to ask of newsletter subscribers – but it’s a strange problem to have, and I’d welcome additional perspective."

When I was 30, I changed my long immigrant last name - which I was bullied for FOREVER - to a nice short pretty one, a version of a family middle name on my mother's side. I assumed I wasn't going to get married, so I might as well do it myself - so I did, and I loved it. Five years later, I got married after all, and kept my new last name as a middle name. Twenty years later, I got divorced... and I've kept my married name because it was such a pain in the ass to change it the first time, and I don't have the energy for it.

So, the lesson is - have the name you like, unless it's a huge pain in the ass.

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author

It might help to clarify that I mean the old name just when it comes to books -- I'm using Lavery exclusively in my personal life and filed name-change paperwork to that effect back in December. Though whether that'll ever get approved now is beyond me!!

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May 25, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

Tbh this is the time of Internet and I think if you want to go full Lavery we'll help the Ortberg stragglers find their way to you

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May 25, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

Recent favs are The Lavender Scare by David Johnson, which is my most *cartoon eyes bug out* queer history book, and also A Wind In The Door, the first sequel to A Wrinkle In Time, which is maybe the transest book I've ever read. Like, it's all about Naming and there is an angel who will only accept the plural cherubim and is covered in a bazillion eyes and everyone spends a bunch of time in someone's mitochondria, shit on that level.

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A data point: in a recent thread about trans and non-binary sf/f authors on Instagram, I recommended your book 'The Merry Spinster' and referred to you as "Daniel Lavery (née Mallory Ortberg)." Because I figured that's still the name associated with that book on Amazon + Google? But, I'm not sure if that's the best way to do it.

Also! I just-now Googled "The Merry Spinster Daniel Lavery" and it came up just fine! So, at least Google knows your real name. Technically the first two results, doing that, lead to LibraryThing and Wikipedia, but the third result, on the right hand side, is to buy the book.

This suggests to me that using 'Daniel Lavery' will still lead casual readers to your previous books online, as well as 'Something That May Shock and Discredit You'. Hopefully this helps?

(FWIW, I'm in Ohio, so if there are regional differences in search results this is what comes up in the Midwest.)

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May 26, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

If you find you can stand it, "Ortberg" is such a funny name, phonetically and calqued as Scrap Mountain. (I assumed it was a pen name in your Toast days.) It's just too perfect for a humorist.

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Thank you for this incredible reading list! As a Jewish writer of essay-memoir who loves to eat, I am finding it suspiciously well-tailored to my interests.

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May 25, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

Just my personal feeling is, at least transition-wise, I like seeing your smattering of different names on your books because it’s like milestones on your journey.

I went through it with my family too religion and enabling predators-wise. Very pleased you were able to jettison their name into the sun in your personal life.

If it helps, I feel for me there can also be something satisfying in using my father’s name for my own queer and mystical purposes. It’s my name now, sucker!!!

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May 25, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

My mother (née A) married and divorced three times over the course of my childhood and adolescence. She changed her last name each time: A > B > C > A-B > D > A. She has boxes of personalized stationery and monogrammed tote bags and assorted professional degrees in all of those names to show for it. I don´t think that she regrets any of these choices (well, except for husband B who was a bit of a stinker) because each seemed right and good in the moment that she made them. Wishing you many right and good moments.

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May 25, 2020Liked by Daniel Lavery

It's not exactly light reading, but I've really been enjoying catching up on back issues of The Point magazine. I've had a print subscription for a while but I usually just browse individual essays online. Reading the physical copies cover-to-cover highlights the interplay of ideas between essays in a really fascinating way, since they're lightly themed around a specific topic. The Point is literary criticism and philosophy with an academic leftist perspective so it's occasionally densely wordy or self consciously intellectual, but that also describes me, so I'm into it. I have a bunch of back issues of Poetry Is Dead that I'll get into once I finish these.

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From the POV of 53-yo me, you're still fairly young, and I expect you have a long career ahead of you. If you switch now, it won't be that long before you have more published under the new name than the old.

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