Hey! It's the pen name I came up when I was twelveeeeee 🙃

I made this my pen name as a joke after suffering yet another depressive episode during the 3rd complete rewrite of my sci-fi novel and it worked surprisingly well.

(His real name is: Samuel Langhorne Clemens)

I'm just curious before I settle on one, since this poll on Helene as a pen name came back mostly neutral. Please share this as much as possible to give me as much feedback as I can get!

Here's a quick creative summary of my work/style for context:

Writing is generally hopepunk in destination, grimbright in journey. Recurring themes across all work include systems failing people, found family, queer identity as intrinsic, the question of complicity, and mourning and hope held simultaneously.

June Eliot is a nod to two things very near and dear to me, and to my beloved Anne Elliot, George and T.S., Elliott Bay, which fronts downtown Seattle, and the Elliott Bay Book Company. Elliott Bay Books' magnificent original Pioneer Square location was a central hub of Seattle literary life and home to Seattle's first bookstore café, one of the earliest pioneers of that business model. The café was also part of the cultural infrastructure of Seattle's early specialty coffee and espresso scene in the 1970s and 80s. Once, when I was a child, I met Allen Ginsberg down in the Elliott Bay Café and he asked me where I went to school. This is much more than you asked for, but it was critically important that my pen name felt like it belonged to me, and both parts of this one do. <3