The obvious short answer to this question is EVERYTHING! But life is never that simple. Many people will tell you that there are times when your name, and how you choose to be called, can become extremely complicated.

Take my name, for example. I thank my lucky stars that I wasn’t named John Smith, the most common name for white men of Anglo-Saxon descent who were born in the mid-20th century. On the other hand, I’m a David Jones—a close second on that list behind John Smith. To be precise, my parents named me David Alexander Jones. With that revelation, I hear you all snickering in the background. Yes, during my youth I did indeed endure a litany of comments about ‘Davey Jones’ Locker’ and about my shorter English namesake who was a member of the sixties pop group, the Monkees. And then there was an even more famous David Jones, who realized very early in his career that he should probably choose a different stage name—you likely know him as David Bowie!

Being teased about your name during your youth is one thing, but the problems can become much bigger when you’re an adult. For example, whenever I crossed the border into the U.S., I couldn’t help but notice that the eyes of Homeland Security agents spent a lot of time scrutinizing my passport or driver’s license, and searching their computers. One very friendly agent finally joked with me on one of those occasions, saying “there’s a lot of you Davey Joneses out there, and some of them aren’t exactly upstanding citizens.” Ironically, my smoothest entry into the U.S. came on one occasion when I mistakenly grabbed my son’s passport from my desk drawer, instead of my own. And just to be clear—his name isn’t David! At any rate, I’m not sure how it happened, but I was welcomed to New York State with an uncharacteristically cheery wave by the Homeland Security agent that morning. There was, of course, the matter of my return to Canada using my son’s passport—but that’s another hilarious story for another time! Let’s just say that Canada Customs wasn’t nearly that cheery upon my return!

The next time my name became an issue was in 2012, while I was writing my first novel, Walls. Around that time, I began thinking ahead to whether or not I was going to use some form of David Jones for my writing identity, or whether to use some other name on the cover of my book. At the time, I was still practising psychology as Dr. David A. Jones, and I was uncomfortable with creating fictional characters in my novel that might inevitably have distant similarities to the multitude of real-life stories I heard from my clients. After giving it quite a bit of thought, I eventually decided that I needed to make a clean distinction between my professional life and my new part-time life as a writer, so I decided to use my middle name—Alex—and to write under the name Alex Jones. And once again, I hear you all groaning in the background at my choice of names, because you know where all of this is going, don’t you?

So, who knew that Alexander Emerick Jones, the now-disgraced conspiracy theorist from Austin, Texas, was going to become as notorious and controversial as he turned out to be? Certainly not me, that’s for sure! His notorious behaviour quickly escalated and became a gigantic monkey on my back, and on the back of anybody named Alex Jones. As an independent author, I realized that if I was going to rise above the notoriety of the Alex Jones InfoWars disinformation, I would either have to mount a costly public relations and advertising campaign that I most certainly couldn’t afford, or go back and reconsider using Alex Jones as my pen name. However, because I was finishing out the last five years of a busy psychology career, I ended up putting my writing career on the back burner because I didn’t have time to deal with the issue.

But, it’s now November, 2022, and how life has changed! I’m now retired and a pandemic has come and changed all of our lives in many ways. I got back to writing during the summer of 2021, and I’m proud to say that I have a unique new novel, The Night Class, ready to publish. But now I’m faced with the dilemma that I put off for the past five years—I either have to change my writing identity and pen name, or find a way to build my own Alex Jones identity, and to make it as distinct from Alex Emerick Jones as possible. The first choice means that I would have to edit and re-publish all of my previous four novels, and publish The Night Class under a name other than Alex Jones. But worse than that, it means discarding my own Alex Jones writing identity, of which I’ve become quite proud.

The longer I spent thinking about my dilemma, the more it just didn’t seem fair that I should have to suffer the consequences for Alex Emerich Jones’ disgusting deeds. I’m tired of living in this man’s dark shadow. And so, I finally came to the conclusion that the world needs to know that there is ANOTHER Alex Jones riding into town—an Alex Jones who writes stories that entertain, but who also addresses important social issues with insight, empathy, and compassion!

In my novel Walls and its prequel, Angela’s Eyes, I addressed domestic abuse and sexual abuse, especially by those in positions with great power differentials over those whom they abuse. Interestingly, I highlighted these abuse issues a full five years before the “Me Too” movement finally brought them into the open. In my novel Faces, I addressed the issue of parental child abuse. And I delved into the world of military sexual abuse in my novel Spirits, years before the Canadian Armed Forces (at its highest levels) was exposed for being a culture that cultivated and covered up rampant sexual abuse. Finally, in my latest novel, The Night Class, I’ve raised issues revolving around Indigenous Reconciliation, and the need to educate Canadians on this extremely important social and political subject.

So, what’s in a name, you ask? For me, it’s everything! It’s time for me to let the world know about “The Other Alex Jones”—the Canadian Alex Jones who writes fiction that is both entertaining and thought-provoking. It’s time for me to mount the social media campaign that I’ve been putting off for the past five years. And in order to do that, I need help from you—my friends, followers, and readers of my novels and this blog—I need you to help spread the word about my work with your Follows, Tweets, Likes, Comments, and Shares on your social media feeds!

Together, let’s show the world that there is another Alex Jones out there—one who is truthful, decent, and who doesn’t spread disinformation and falsehoods! Alex Emerick Jones is likely going to think of me as the “Anti-Alex Jones.” But, I don’t care—from here on, I’m choosing to call myself “The OTHER Alex Jones!”

Watch for the hashtag #theotheralexjones. Let’s see if we can make it trend!