Or rather… I have a new pen name: Tessa Barbosa.
If you’ve followed me on social media you might have heard already, but I’ve updated all my handles to @HiTessaBarbosa and set up a pretty new website at TessaBarbosa.com. There’s not much there yet, but it’s set up to go for someday.
In the meantime, I do plan to keep this blog and this website. I enjoy blogging here and I plan to continue posting personal updates here. But… lately, I’ve also felt like I needed a fresh start.
Tessa is my nickname from one side of my family, and Barbosa is a family name from the other. I’ve been thinking about what I write, and it never felt quite right to use my married name to write when I’ve been writing stories inspired by Filipino culture / history / characters. I want to honor my ancestors and my heritage in my books. And I also want other Filipinos to recognize me too. I’m not trying to hide that part of me. It is me.
Things are in the works. I’ll update you when I can!