Adam Blumer

Did you hear the latest on J.K. Rowling, the forty-seven-year-old best-selling author of the Harry Potter series? She wrote a crime novel, The Cuckoo’s Calling, and did something sneaky. She published it under a pseudonym, Robert Galbraith, and pretended to be “a former plainclothes military policeman who had left the Army in 2003 to work in the private security industry” (The Telegraph). It’s perfectly logical why Rowling would use such deception. Imagine being such a successful author and trying to publish something after Harry Potter fame. Anything less successful would be a major letdown. She said, “Being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience. It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation, and pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name” (The Telegraph). Later, she added, “Being Robert Galbraith has been all about the work, which is my favorite part of being a writer . . .…