So for those of you that don’t know me personally, I have a confession…Charlotte Copper is not my real name. It is a pen name. Why a pen name? I have to admit, I did want to see MY name (my real name) on the cover of my book, but I chose a pen name because in this world where everything can be found on the internet, I wanted a little bit of privacy. Not a lot, because I know I can still be found…but a little.

So how did I come up with Charlotte Copper? It was an accident actually.

My soon-to-be released book is titled Silver Blade. All the other stories I’ve written, am writing, and hope to publish, have colors in their titles, too. I’ve submitted Golden Star to Wild Rose Press in hopes of getting a second novella published, and Red Forever was my first (sob, sob) rejection letter. Based on this trend, I decided I wanted a color in my name.

The first name I decided upon was Amber Rose. How perfect! Colors in both first and last, and (in my opinion) a true romance writer name. However, as some of you may know, Amber Rose is also the name of (according to Wikipedia, anyway) a model and actress. Yes, I could still use it, but I decided to keep looking.

Then I moved to Amber Lee. Good name, keeps the Amber, puts me in the middle of the alphabet on book lists. Again, thanks to the internet, I found out Amber Lee is also a model. This Amber, however, is known to model bathing suits, lingerie, and less. Moving on…

I threw around ideas like Roni Rose, Wendy White, Velvet Green. I was rambling on about this one day in the car to The Daughter, when I said, “I should just use my grandmother’s name, Charlotte Cowper.” “Why don’t you?” she asked. “Because I want a color,” was my answer.

A couple of days later, I’m lying on The Daughter’s bed as I try to wake her up for school, and I’m rambling once again about trying to find a pen name. The Daughter, who is not truly awake and is simply trying to get rid of me says “Why don’t you just use your grandmother’s name. Charlotte Cowper. Or Charlotte Copper. Or whatever!”

And voila! A tribute to my grandmother. A color in my name.
A pen name…and author…were created.