It's never been that hard to figure out who I am. I don't mean this in an existential way -- I'm a writer, after all, I need some mystery in the world -- but in a purely practical way. For the whole time I've been writing at Open Salon, my real name has been at most two clicks away from this very page.  But I think to most readers here, I've been a planet instead of a person -- a purple neon image of saturn. That has been terribly cool.

I'm still going to use that image, but today, I'm putting a name to the rings. Hi. I'm Jenn.

This isn't a confession born from trouble or pressure; it's not spurred by  soul-searching about the rightness of anonymity. It's much more selfish than that. I have a piece up at Salon today, under my real name, and it seemed as good a time as any to merge my identities and start using the real name everywhere.

I will miss the alliteration of Saturn Smith. In fact, I'll miss many things about this lovely planet I've inhabited. But it's probably time to come to Earth.

So how's the weather down here today?

---

A bit of an update, 2/5/10: After a day or two of soul-searching, a nice discussion of practicalities with a friend, and also a few jarring and wacky contacts via my personal e-mail, I'm going to put Saturn back as my OS name -- but my real name is now very easily discoverable in the bio portion of this page.  I hope this will discourage, a bit, the random clutter while still allowing anyone who wants to know my real name to find it very, very easily.

I can't thank everyone enough for the kind "introductions" and continuing friendship and discussion here! But I will try: Thank you.

 ~Jenn