Susie
asked
M.R. Carey:
Hi, probably someone asked you this already, but I was just curious: why do you write your initials instead of Mike? I understand why a woman would need to do this, but why would a man? Is it because this book is different from your previous works and the publishers thought that would work against you?
M.R. Carey
Hi Susie. Yeah, it's that. GIRL represented a big jump in tone and approach for me, and publishers always see that as a sort of crisis-in-waiting in terms of persuading bookstores to order in the book. Authors with much higher profiles than mine have run foul of that problem. So twice now I've switched names in order to advertise the different between a new project and older works. The first time was when I was (briefly) Adam Blake. And the second time is now, for GIRL and the two books that will follow it.
It hadn't occurred to me that using initials made my gender ambiguous, but of course it does. That wasn't a factor in the decision. In fact, the initials thing blew up in our faces a little bit. My real middle initial is J, and the first proofs went out with M.J.Carey as the author. Then we discovered the other M.J.Carey who writes bondage erotica...
It hadn't occurred to me that using initials made my gender ambiguous, but of course it does. That wasn't a factor in the decision. In fact, the initials thing blew up in our faces a little bit. My real middle initial is J, and the first proofs went out with M.J.Carey as the author. Then we discovered the other M.J.Carey who writes bondage erotica...
More Answered Questions
Figgy
asked
M.R. Carey:
This is a pretty stock standard question, but... I absolutely ADORED The Girl With All The Gifts, and am pretty much going to be snapping up anything that you write immediately(have plans to get the graphic novels, too). So... Are there any other books in the works? Not within the series necessarily, but in general?
Audi Walbridge
asked
M.R. Carey:
When you looked at all the zombie stuff that can be thrown into the mega text, what were some of the things you wanted to avoid in your book? Were there certain things you wanted to hit on by adding your own twist? Why do you think that it's been necessary to divide zombies into two stages? Just some questions my professor and two of my classmates talked about today and thought we'd throw your way! Audi Bowman
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