In American Fiction Notes, Mark Athitakis has a bit to say about the nom de plume (which is what Nom de Guerre’s been calling himself so we won’t find out he’s secretly a sissy writer) and its various uses. Aside from the usual reasons of privacy and nonculpability, some of your more prolific authors will put them on, like hats out of a trunk, to dress up for different genres. Of course if you’re as prolific as, say, Joyce Carol Oates, you run the risk of having two stories under two different names being accepted by the same journal. But most of us don’t have to worry about that particular scenario. Mostly the pseudonym is a small flirtation with multiple personalities — or, as Nora Roberts says, “It’s marketing. There’s Pepsi, there’s Diet Pepsi, and there’s Caffeine Free Pepsi.”

It’s also a useful distancing tool for writers who do hack work to pay the bills, so as to avoid the old crap showing up on their Amazon page when they finally sell that literary fiction. Which is not to be confused with distancing tools used by literary fiction authors writing under their own names who would just rather stay home, thanks.

Still, for a really good smokescreen you can’t beat plain old anonymity. Taking that idea and running with it is The New Anonymous, a new journal that blind screens and edits all submissions and then publishes them — you guessed it — anonymously: “At The New Anonymous we celebrate the text. We are at once a literary journal and a literary act.” The first issue is out, and you can order it through their website. It’s also on sale at newstands, but we’re not allowed to tell you which ones.