Rachael Dickzen?
Credit: Warren Verity via Shoott
My name is legally Rachael Dickson, and I have no intention of changing it, but I changed the last three letters of it on Facebook to match the last syllable of my husband’s name as a bit of a joke and actually ended up liking the way it looked! Plus, while there are LOTS of Rachael Dicksons/Rachel Dicksons/Rachael Dixons/Rachel Dixons, I could not find ANY other Dickzens in a Google search. So I’m using it as a pen name now. It should be much easier for people to find my writing under this name than under my legal name!
Anyway. I'm a trademark attorney and law school professor (technically visiting assistant professor) living with my husband John and two spoiled cats (Akira Purrosawa and Ziggy Stardust) in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.
I write Shakespeare and history inspired novels and plays, historical cat legend short stories, and nonfiction and poetry on the subjects of mental health, history, theater, and marital surnames. I started writing creatively as a kid and later became a journalist. I used to have a whole long biography on this website, but now I’m just going to give you my LinkedIn, so you can go check it out if you’d like.
Most Horrible
I made this cover design concept for NaNoWriMo and then lost the original file, so here’s the super tiny version!
As a tribute to my love of Shakespeare, I wrote and directed a one-act play designed as a prologue to Hamlet, set in Purgatory. This premiered in January 2019 at the Britches and Hose Theater Troupe’s New Works Festival.
Most Horrible has now been expanded to novel length! I started it formally in November 2018 as part of National Novel Writing Month, “won” by reaching my 50,000 word count, and finished it in January 2019. I am now in the very long process of editing and revising it (I’m adding in so much stuff from the Danish Reformation!).