When I started thinking of a new pen name to write fiction featuring lesbian protagonists, I commandeered the name of an ancestor. Eliza Frances Andrews was an interesting woman, one I have mixed feelings about. A southern belle who lived through the civil war as the privileged daughter of a prominent plantation owner, she refused to marry "below her station" after the war and therefore set about creating her own career—highly unusual for a woman of her day and age. Eventually she became a teacher, novelist, and world-renowned botanist. And interestingly, a socialist. But she was quite racist and I can only imagine what she would have to say about LGBTQ people. It is therefore somewhat tongue-in-cheek to borrow her name; it is my reimagining of Eliza if she'd grown up in the 21st century rather than the 19th, after women's lib and the Civil Rights movement and Stonewall. Perhaps a 21st-century Eliza would grin at me and say, "Right on." Perhaps the 19th-century Eliza is rolling over in her grave—if she is, call it karmic justice. Reach out anytime: eliza@ninja-writer.com. PS, I also write young adult science fiction / fantasy under the name R. A. Marshall (another borrowed name). LGBTQ readers might enjoy the Lost Children trilogy.
