I am NOT Rebecca

I am writing this post, so that I can just link to it whenever somebody thinks I'm someone else (at least, one specific someone else). A few minutes spent now will save hours over time...

I am Rolfe B Bergstrom, NOT Rebecca S Borgstrom.

Rebecca Sean Borgstrom authored the Nobilis RPG, which is a very good game and a beautiful book. She penned it under the name R. Sean Borgstrom, which I presume she did to mask her gender on the covers of her earliest books in the largely male-dominated gaming industry. That's just a guess, though, as I've never met her. Could be she just really likes her middle name. In any event, her name appears frequently as R. S. Borgstrom, and shows up in enough different variants that some fans don't memorize her exact name.

It turns out she's also written some books for White Wolf in their Exalted game line. Exalted is the spiritual (well, at least mechanical) ancestor of Scion.

I've been posting on the Scion Forums and Wiki in the past few months. And I set up my account as r_b_bergstrom, to match my email, my blogs, several work-related accounts, etc. I had no idea Rebecca had written anything for WWP at the time I created my white-wolf account. Not that I'd automatically have done otherwise if I'd known - my name is my name, after all.

(As an aside: See the angry dude on the phone with the nasty scar on his shoulder? That's me. I hope, for her sake, that Rebecca looks nothing like me.)

As a result of this quasi-homonymic similarity, people keep calling me Rebecca when they respond to my posts on those forums, no matter how often I correct them. The last time I had this many feminine pronouns aimed at me was a Halloween party in '91.

I've even received a few posts and private messages from people who wanted to say something along the lines of "it means so much to me that a writer as talented as yourself liked my house rule" or "I've been a fan of your work for years" and chances are that few (if any) of them were referring to my little part of a book from Atlas Games or my old Amber pages from back in the day. And when I reply and shatter their misconception, I'm always worried that I come off as insult -ed/-ing.

Changing my profiles to list more data about me didn't help, as it turns out we both live in Seattle, and were born within 24 hours of each other. (Thanks to wikipedia for enlightening me about the parallels.) You'd think Gender would be enough, but people apparently see only what they want.

While the main point of this post is to end confusion, the secondary goal is to serve as multiple apologies.

Rebecca, if you are aware of any of this (which seems unlikely, but ya never know) I hope you find the situation mildly amusing, and don't think it's been in anyway intentional on my part. If you are aware of it, and it has vexed you, I'm sorry. I promise I've done nothing to promote this case of mistaken identities, and should our paths ever cross I hope you'll share a laugh with me about it instead of telling me to go somewhere unpleasant.

I'd also like to apologize to those who feel confused or misled. You're not alone in making this error, so don't feel too embarrassed. I'm certainly not insulted by your mistakes - 'cause frankly Nobilis rocks and I wish I had something that cool amongst my authorial credits.

And I'll try not to giggle the next time this happens. Instead, I'll just refer you to this post.