Hi Lourdes,

-----Respuesta de Adrienne Eisen-----
De: <adrienneeisen@earthlink.net>
Responder a: adrienneeisen@earthlink.net
Enviado el: lunes, 17 de mayo de 2004 4:35:27
Para: Lourdes García Gimeno <lourdes_lur@hotmail.com>
Asunto: Re: Hi! My name is Lourdes

Hi Lourdes,

I've answered your questions below. Are you writing something for school? Which school do you atend?

Adrienne

-----Original Message-----
From: Lourdes García Gimeno
Sent: May 15, 2004 5:35 AM
To: adrienneeisen@earthlink.net
Subject: Hi! My name is Lourdes

Thanks for answering my email. I have a pair of questions that, if it is possible, I would like you answer me to settle my queries, as soon as possible:

Firstly, I found in the internet that your real name is Penelope Trunk, why do you write under the pseudonym Adrienne Eisen?

Penelope Trunk is the pseudonym, not Adrienne. When I started writing my business column, I was writing about the office where I was working, so I needed a pseudonym. I no longer need to be anonymous in my business writing, but people in the business world know the name Penelope Trunk, so I keep it.  I actually have a bunch of names, and I wrote a column about it. I have pasted the column below - maybe you'll enjoy reading it.

I’m working with your hypertext The Interview, as I have seen and compared with your other hypertexts; it’s quite different the structure than the others, is there any reason or is it only a coincidence?

I have found that the structure of my hypertexts is a natural off-shoot of how my brain is thinking. Usually, my brain thinks in the structure of the other hypertexts. When I came up with The Interview, though, I was just starting out a business career in the Fortune 500 and I was obsessed with the power of the resume. I was thinking that resumes are really just stories, and the person who is the best storyteller has the best resume. So it makes sense that I came up with a resume-obsessed hypertext.

What do you prefer: write novels or hypertexts? And, what kind of process was involved with taking these stories and placing them within the more traditional novel form?

My brain thinks in non-linear ways. Hypertext writing comes naturally to me. Putting my writing togehter into a linear formate nearly killed me. The process was that I bring my novel to a writing workshop, and everyone trashes the narrative arc of the novel, and then I bring it home and work on it, and take it back to the workshop, and everyone trashes it. But each time the people would trash it in new, and helpful ways. So eventually, I came up with a linear structure that people liked. But the process of writing hypertext is much more enjoyable to me.

I have read in an interview that Nicholson Baker, Kathy Acker, also Martin Amis and Mark Leyner had influenced you, why?

Kathy Acker writes about difficult topics in a candid way and she made me feel more comfortable writing about whatever I felt. Nicholson Baker writes endlessly about one, single topic and keeps the reader interested with spunky and insightful prose, which is something I aspire to do in my little hypertext snippets. Mark Leyner helped me to see ways of getting non-linear ideas into paragraphs, even though, to be honest, I can't really get through one of his books.  

 Thank you again and I hope it doesn’t suppose any trouble.   

              Lourdes García

Me, Myself, and Penelope

My three brands: Divided, I conquer.

By Penelope Trunk, June 11, 2001

It started when I was just out of college, and a woman in my office came back one Monday with a new name. I remember thinking, "What?! She took her husband's name?! After 20 years of feminist theory, this!" Then when my breadwinner mom divorced my dad after 25 years of marriage, she kept his name. I remember saying, "Mom, you are so lame. You are an independent woman. Get rid of his name." She told me then that she was well-known in her industry, and her lucrative career would suffer if all of a sudden she lost her name recognition.

I realized how important names are. And I changed mine. I made one up, went to court, and told the judge that I no longer wished to be defined in terms of the men I associated with (in this case, my father). The people in family court applauded. I was proud. My family thought I was going through a phase.

My new last name had the trendy flair of having a capital letter in the middle, like GeoCities or DoubleClick or other companies gone bad. I thought it would be the perfect name for posting my digital master's thesis online. I thought I was so hip and cool, so self-assured. And relative to now, maybe I was.

When I got my first six-figure-salary job, I tempered the radicalism, dropping the cap in the middle and keeping the origins of my name to myself. Lo and behold, my thesis won a software-industry award. I found out when my boss told me. He shook my hand and said he was honored to have me on staff. I imagined myself winning the first digital Pulitzer Prize or at least getting an office with a view.

Then he called me into his office and, pointing to the screen, said, "Did you write this?" He said he thought it was pornography. I thought to respond, "You are an ignoramus, and Philip Roth won awards for writing about a boy masturbating with meat," but I didn't. He continued, "You will go very far in corporate America, but not with your name tied to this. If you had had your name on this when our board investigated you, we probably wouldn't have hired you."

So I changed my name on my website to A---. I sent news of my award to my mom. I told her to read my stories online. And she said, "Oh, my God, did you change your name again?" When I got the eCompany gig and the name Penelope Trunk, I thought to say, "Wait, I already have a pen name," but I didn't. When I sent my mom to the site, she couldn't find my column.

Now I have four names, if you count my given name. When my brother calls me at work and asks for me by the surname we once shared, that person doesn't exist here. When I was on a business trip and the publisher of my forthcoming novel called, he had to ask, "Are you A--- there, or something else?"

In the process of building a name for myself at work, I have a pretty good understanding of the issues of branding. And if I were a consultant for the brand of me, I'd say, "What a mess." At first I just wanted to be a good student of feminist theory. Then I became so mired in protecting my brand at work that I ended up with two pen names. Two pen names means branding twice. Like Corn Flakes and Fruit Loops. Can two brands be combined to create a single, more powerful brand? Maybe for PricewaterhouseCoopers, but Corn Loops sounds stupid. For me, each brand alone is stronger than one combined but unfocused brand. So there will be three brands (the employee, the novelist, and Penelope Trunk), one brand manager (me), and a very small audience of people who knew me when life was simple, gas was cheap, and I had just one name.

-----Respuesta de Adrienne Eisen-----
De: <adrienneeisen@earthlink.net>
Responder a: adrienneeisen@earthlink.net
Enviado el: lunes, 24 de mayo de 2004 23:40:23
Para: Lourdes García Gimeno <lourdes_lur@hotmail.com>
Asunto: Re: Hi Adrienne

Hi Lourdes,

I'm glad the information is helping you with your project. I've answered the rest of your questions below. I definitely would like to see your web page when you finish. I can't read Spanish very well, but I have plenty of friends who can translate for me.

Adrienne

-----Original Message-----
From: Lourdes García Gimeno
Sent: May 22, 2004 8:03 AM
To: adrienneeisen@earthlink.net
Subject: Hi Adrienne

Hi Adrienne,

Thanks you again for your help. Yes, I received your answer for my e-mail (sorry for don’t answer you quickly!!), it helps me a lot and also your article Me, Myself, and Penelope. My three brands: Divided, I conquer (that you sent me); I think that without your help I wouldn’t finish my work. And you asked me, in the other e-mail, where am I studying – well, I’m currently in my second year of English Philology at the University of Valencia (Spain) and this work is for the subject “Hypertexts and English Literature”.

I have some questions:

What is the advantage for you, related with the readers, of writing in hypertext and distributing it in the web? 

I have read in internet that you have a peculiar way of writing your hypertexts (using the floor or something similar). I want to know if you use any programme for your hypertextual works.

-->I don't use a program for my hypertext. I started writing hypertext before there was such a thing as authoring software for the web, so I had to learn how to code HTML by hand. I got used to doing the code by hand, so I still do, since my pages aren't very complicated.  

In my work I have to include (more or less) all of your hypertextual works and also (if it’s possible) your articles published in the Internet, are any page where appears all enumerated?

-->Everything that I write under the name Adrienne Eisen is at adrienneeisen.com.

And, finally, have you published any other print novel, apart from "Making Scenes"? And have you think translate your novels?

-->Making Scenes is the only print novel. It would be great if someone would publish a translation, but so far, no offers.

 
If you want, when I finish my work, I will send you the address of my web page (but it's in Spanish...) :-)

Thanks!!

Lourdes García

También adjunto la correspondencia, mediante e-mails, que han intercambiado mi compañero Edu Cantero Laserna y la autora. Para lo cual incluyo el siguiente link en el que se encuentran todos ellos: mural.uv.es/ecanla/emails_adrienne.html

 

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