I used to say I didn’t write because of my name: Michelle Hoppe.

Michelle Hoppe is a Los Angeles writer/actress. I’m an unemployed Florida English teacher/writer. She played the guidance counselor in a reversed Shakespearean comedy Ten Things I Hate about You. I played nun #45 in a school production of The Sound of Music. She is a pornographic novelist. I am a Mormon. Her website has a single red rose draped seductively across the opening of a blurry-paged novella and fine white print on a black screen irrelevantly warning away minors. I masked pride and fear, for pride is fear, behind the question, How could I ever make it away from that name?

But I now proclaim–irrelevantly, as I assume someone is reading this–that I do write, and there came a time when I had to submit my first cover letter. I’ve heard cover letters are legendarily archived when ridiculous. Phrases like, “My mother really loved this story, and she thinks you will too,” or “My writing group expressed extreme like, even love, for my work. I’ve sent you this same story three times. Please take me seriously” are kept for editor posterity. Cover letters are the art of selling oneself, the paper equivalent of an interview, so I don’t know what I was thinking when I submitted,

Dear Editor,

Bio: Someday I’d like to be published as M. R. H., as opposed to Michelle Renee Hoppe or Michelle Hoppe. M. R. Hoppe sounds a little too sci-fi or fantasy for what I’ve written. Michelle Hoppe is the name of the actress who played a dirty guidance counselor in Ten Things I Hate about You. She’s a dirty novelist in real life who publishes under my name (name strumpet!). Maybe someday I’ll get married and all my problems will be fixed. I’m asking these questions now because I have yet to be published. You could change that, wink wink. Now I feel like a strumpet.

Thank you for your consideration,

M.R.H.

The next day: panic. Aside from felonies and misdemeanors, there was absolutely nothing to be done. Two months later I received a reply.

Dear Michelle,

Thanks for submitting your work to . . .  Unfortunately, I can’t use it for our next issue.  I would, however, love to see more work in the future.

Thanks again,

Poetry Editor

P.S.  I was honestly much more drawn to the style and tone of your bio. Do you have any poems that are looser, like that?

By M.R.H.
Satellite Beach, FL