I’m feeling a bit bipolar at the moment, because I’ve spent the last day or two setting up a social media presence of sorts for my crime-writing alter-ego, Livia Day.
Oh. Have we not talked about her yet?
My first crime novel, A Trifle Dead, will be published early next year by Twelfth Planet Press, under the name of Livia Day. It’s a fun Hobart-based murder mystery featuring fashion, food and vintage film geekery.
I wanted to differentiate between my fantasy/SF writing and my crime writing, because while they have a lot of crossover appeal, they also have two distinct audiences. I still wish I’d done something with the Shimmaron book to separate my children’s writing from my adult writing, even if it was just slipping in a secret initial, or dropping off one of my surnames. For crime, it felt right to choose a new name, even if the risk is that I lose some of my current loyal readers who don’t realise it’s me.
HEY SWEETIES, IT’S ME!
On the other hand, I didn’t want the hassle stress of actually crafting a properly secret identity. It’s still possible to do that in this day and age – and it’s amazing how many writers, especially women, don’t write under their legal name for all sorts of sensible reasons – but I preferred to try something along the Mira Grant/Seanan Maguire, Marianne De Pierres/Marianne Delacourt model, which means I tell everyone who I am, but still get to be treated as separate entities in library catalogues, etc. Best of both worlds, right?
I’m still figuring it all out. I’m starting to suspect that Livia Day might dress better than me, and that’s a level of commitment to the concept that I don’t THINK I want to allow…
My blog will continue to be its usual mish-mash of everything I care about. I’ll be talking about Livia stuff and Tansy stuff and everything else as it becomes relevant. But I always intended my Tumblr account to be technically for Livia rather than myself, on the grounds that I didn’t want to double up doing the same social media platform for multiple identities – that’s why it’s called Tabitha Darling’s Bedroom Floor, something that hopefully will make sense once you read A Trifle Dead!
Livia now has her own Twitter handle too: @liviadaysleuth
She doesn’t have her own Pinterest ID, but I have been keeping a board devoted to A Trifle Dead, so if you want some hints about the book and the sense of style of the characters, you can check it out. See, it’s all so incestuous already!
Twelfth Planet Press have announced a trifle recipe competition, to find fun and delicious recipes to publish in the novel. I hope lots of you will submit!
Over at the Tara Sharp blog, Marianne has interviewed my publisher Alisa about the Deadlines crime imprint, and A Trifle Dead.