Identity

This is a selfie of the artist taken in Las Vegas in April 2025 showing off his leather gear.

Pseudonym -- Pen Name -- Artist Name

In 1996 I started publishing online under the pseudonym or pen name Madeira Desouza. In 2007 I branched out into creating original, one-of-a-kind three-dimensional digital images featuring male characters for online publication also using Madeira Desouza as my artist name. In 2012 I relocated to Nevada and started releasing creative works as Madeira Desouza of Las Vegas.

But most people know me and refer to me by my nickname, Woody. I’m a citizen of the United States, born in San Luis Obispo, California. My heritage is Portuguese from both my late parents, Edward and Evelyn Goulart.

The word madeira is Portuguese for wood. The surname Desouza is a variation of the surname Souza from my old country ancestors on my mother’s side.

I turned out to be an overachiever. Before I had reached the age of 30, I had earned both a master’s degree and doctoral degree in communications.

I started out wanting to make a living as a college professor. But I discovered a stunning truth. That profession is not the best for job security due to toxic office politics in the academic field. Plus, a person does not receive financial compensation that is adequate to live on when just starting out in this profession. As a young person I found I could not live on the salary of a college professor so I got out of this line of work quickly. As an older person I find that working as a college professor feels very good for giving back to society.

When I was a boy, I was taught to repress my emotions and sexual feelings. This came from having attending Roman Catholic school taught by nuns and priests from grade one through twelve who all seemed to want every one of their students to conform to a cookie-cutter standard of sameness. I am pleased to report that I eventually broke free from those repressive teachings which I wholeheartedly believe stunted my development during my youth.

I developed an irrational fear that I would turn out to be merely an ordinary man. I felt I was sufficiently talented to be a writer. That’s why I attended journalism school where I grew to admire writers who distinguished themselves through their professional works. But, I also must confess that I developed a very strong attraction to the well-known practice of writers who use a pseudonym. I discovered in those days that Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Filtered through the perceptions of a teenage boy, that was the coolest thing I had ever come to know about the writing profession.

No surprise that Mark Twain has remained my favorite American writer of all time. Not that I think I am as good as he was or ever will be. But, I seek to be humorous like him, to tell vivid and imaginative stories like he told, and, yes, to have a memorable nom de plume like his. I created a pseudonym for myself that would sound considerably more Old World ethnic compared to my own birth name while being a name that everyone should recognize no ordinary person would ever have.

It does not really matter whether someone with a pseudonym is prominent and globally identifiable like Mark Twain or Stephen King or J.K. Rowling or Jay Z. The simple reality is that having a pseudonym is a timeworn way of differentiating yourself from everyone else.

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The best way to contact Madeira Desouza is found here.