What’s In A Name?

Juniper Shadow

That’s a pen name, isn’t it? Yes. Yes, it is. Of course it is. I set out to write romance that had at least a touch of spice and I can’t imagine (or, worse, I can imagine) the supermarket conversations I would be subjected to if people knew I wrote about sex. So, there needed to be a pen name to protect my delicate ears from any oversharing in the fresh produce aisle!

It is also very liberating. Like the writing equivalent of a good mask – I can be whomever I want to be with this identity to lurk behind. I can let out the side of me that social conventions have had me tuck away.

Choosing the name had a few layers to it. The first was that old game about creating your stripper name out of your first pet and the street where you first lived. Who hasn’t named a black cat or dog Shadow? But also, these writings come from my shadow self – she’s the same as me, but darker. She’s got the same lived experiences as me, but she’s not the public face, not the version of me who needs to move through the world in safe decorum.

And the Juniper? Not my first street, but a concept of a name that is close to home. Raised by very hippy parents, I was lucky to escape being named after sunshine or moonbeams, so I cherry picked (or berry picked) a plant name that my Mum would have loved.

So, here she is, Juniper Shadow – product of a childhood spent foraging in hedgerows and sharing communal curry around open fires. Surrounded by stories told under non-judgemental stars, with the glow from distant cityscapes casting a long … and, it turns out, rather smutty … shadow.

The person behind the shadow, me, has been writing stories since the early days, spent more than a decade teaching children and now works with people and stories in a most respectable fashion. Life is filled with family, friends, dogs and adventure … with secret smut on the side.