Elaine Marie Alphin: Hello. My name is Elaine Marie Alphin. My last name is pronounced Alphin like dolphin. My first name, Elaine, means bright light or shiny one, which I kind of like. A lot of times, parents have trouble agreeing on a name for their baby, but my parents like telling the story that they decided to start the discussion about what to name me by each writing down the name they liked most. Well, they both wrote down Elaine, so that's what I was named.

When a woman gets married, it's usual for her to make her maiden name, which is her last name from before her marriage, part of her married name. Now, my father came from El Salvador, and my maiden name was Bonilla, so my name might have turned out to be Elaine Bonilla Alphin, but whenever I got in trouble as a youngster, my mother called, "Elaine Marie!" I guess I figured that being a writer who challenges readers to consider new ideas was bound to get me in trouble as a grownup, so I chose to keep my middle name as part of my married name, and I'm Elaine Marie Alphin.