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Why I Killed My Pen Name After 12 Months of Writing Online
This is something I never expected to write when I started.
Over the last twelve months, I published all of my content under the pen name Leo Sharp. Hundreds of blog posts, newsletters, and comments — all of these things carry the badge of my online persona.
I also went to great lengths to keep it that way. I had separate email addresses, purchased a website domain, and created social media accounts.
The result? Despite all the writing breadcrumbs I sprinkled over the internet, there’s no trace of my real name. Everything is neatly separated, like food bins at a buffet.
Until now.
From this day forward, I’ll be publishing under my real name: Stephan Joppich. You can’t imagine how weird it feels typing my name for the first time in a blog post. After all, it has never appeared on top of my content. I never even associated it with my creative work.
But I’d like to change that. And I’d like to explain why.
Let’s start at the beginning.
Why I Was Using a Pen Name
There are dozens of reasons why I chose a pen name. But these are the three that stood out to me the most. And they all have one…
