New Year New Site

With the new year, I’ve decided to create an all-new author website, which is what you’re looking at now! For the past year I’ve been preparing to publish my fiction works under a pen name (A.S. Kerr), but the closer I get to having things ready to share with the world, the more I’ve realized that I want to step out into the light as myself. For several reasons.

In the past, I’ve published work anonymously or under pen names, but I’m at a stage in my life now where I’m prepared to fully integrate all aspects of my life and work. That’s why, when my amazing sister-in-law asked if I’d considered dropping the pen name and publishing as myself, I didn’t even hesitate to do it. Her question confirmed the thoughts I’d already been debating. And so, here I am.

Aside from that piece, it’s important for me to recognize and acknowledge that I’ve got a limited number of spoons. If you don’t know what that means, check out the Spoon Theory for those of us with chronic illnesses. That may seem unrelated to using a pen name, but here’s the connection: managing a whole other persona—even if it was me being my authentic self, just with another name—is extra effort that I just don’t see the point in exerting. Multiple socials. Multiple emails. Multiple accounts. Even just remembering to respond when someone used my pen name proved to be more of a challenge than I’d expected it to be! I feel much better now that I know I’ll be doing this whole publishing thing under my actual name. It’s one less thing to try to remember as I’m venturing into this new world.

I’m still smoothing out the website and working on changing all my A.S. Kerr accounts to bear my actual name. I’ll be doing it slowly over the coming weeks so that the few hundred people I already have interacting with me on places like Tiktok and Facebook aren’t totally confused when they see they’re somehow following a Kyleen Wren, and that A.S. Kerr is gone. I’ve really held off doing much more than daily writing updates until I was totally set on how I planned to move forward. I’m admittedly still nervous about that part. Showing my face on the internet after years away feels overwhelming, but I’m going to challenge myself to do it.

I’ll also be migrating some of my old journal posts from my other website to this one, so if you see posts that seem to be from 2023, that’s because they are! From here on out, I’ll be here, on this website.

I hope you’re having a wonderful 2024 so far!