I've been using the name "K.M. Hirosaki" for ten years now. I'll start off by saying that it doesn't feel like it, in some senses, and that 2002 also feels like forever ago at the same time.

Now that secret (that most people didn't even know WAS a secret) about my "identity" is out of the bag, a lot of folks have asked what's going to happen with these two names that I write and post under. The short answer is that I'm not going anywhere. The longer answer involves stuff like brand identity and stuff like that.

So here's a little story about how K.M. Hirosaki got started.

My first adult furry stories have been long lost to catastrophic computer failure. The first ones that I ever posted online, however, are still out there, and I remember how I felt back then, putting works up online for others to see. I believe my thought process was something along the lines of, "Oh god, nobody can know I wrote this."

Which I guess is a natural reaction when you're young and still kind of new to the whole "life after college" thing. I picked the name "Hirosaki" in honor of one of my favorite cities in Japan, home to a beautiful castle and apparently some of the best cherry blossom viewing in the country (which, alas, I never got to do). The "K.M." was to make it sound more, I dunno, authorly I guess.

Back in 2002 and 2003 or so, when the site then known as Yiffstar was still very small, I had the good fortune of building up a fanbase pretty quickly. Granted, more stories get uploaded to SoFurry in a DAY nowadays than I think would get uploaded to old-school Yiffstar in a whole week back then, so it was easier to stand out. Still, the result was that I developed a nice rapport with my fans, and I soon came to the conclusion that writing stories about animal-people for grown-ups wasn't anything to be embarrassed about.

Then, of course, I got hired by a company that produces a very well-known anthropomorphic-related franchise, and I thought to myself, "You know, I don't think my bosses would appreciate the connection very much if they happened to Google me and find me writing furry porn*."

So, the years went by, and I kept my adult writing under this name, and my not-as-adult writing under my people-name, which was openly tied to my "main" fursona. When it came time to release my first novel, I remember people asking me, "Why don't you just release it under K.M. Hirosaki? Sure, it's not adult, but you could ride the popularity boost."

But the fact of the matter is that I had more popularity as a non-adult writer than I ever did as "K.M. Hirosaki," not counting those early years. That, and I was too proud of what I'd written to NOT put my real name on the cover. This is also kind of why I'm annoyed whenever I hear people claim that writing adult content is like "cheating" or some kind of "quick fix" to ensure popularity. Because it's not, and having been two writers at the same time, I can say that. :)

Anyway, as the years went on at my old job, after having been there for six years, I finally realized that the company didn't give a shit about what I did with my personal life. Hell, I was the "office furry" anyway, and the company was full of nerds, and nobody ever gave me shit about it (if anything, they were a bit reserved about the fact that they were curious and wanted to ask me questions). And I was starting to think, "You know, having two writing names is kind of annoying and doesn't really gain me anything except for separating my fanbases when they don't need to be." (At this point in my career, I should point out that I was regularly TSing while AT work, so I didn't much fear furry-related repercusions, really.)

Then, of course, Kyell and I started up Unsheathed.

Now, I'd only been considering de-pseudonyming myself up to this point, and hadn't actually done so (clearly), and so as the podcast happened I sort of reestablished myself as "K.M. Hirosaki" being one of the two hosts. So at that point, it made sense to stick with it, because I didn't want to confuse anyone by suddenly changing names partway through, plus the K&K thing was kind of neat, and "fox and otter" makes for better demographic breakup than "fox and fox."

And so that was that. But years of being on a podcast, taking questions about novel writing and not being able to answer questions about them in more tangible detail made me feel hamstrung. Also, it was honestly getting a little silly, especially since I'd begun appearing in public at that point and, as anyone who's met me in person can attest, I kind of stand out (that being said, it IS hilarious that a fake pair of glasses had managed to fool people when that wasn't even my intention).

So yeah, after all was said and done, I figured, why not just come out and put an end to the secret that almost nobody was wondering about. I'd dithered with seriously considering doing so for like three years, and in the end, I have nothing to be ashamed of, and I'm happy that two separate reader bases can now look at my stuff and go, "Oh, this author I like wrote all this other stuff, too!" and at the end of the day, everyone wins with that.



*Honestly, I don't think my stories are popular because they're particularly good at the whole orgasm-inducing thing, but the "erotica vs pornography" discussion is a whole other post, really.