Franny Billingsley: Hello, my name is Franny Billingsley. My official, legal name, though, is Francis Newberry Billingsley, which is kind of a nice name. I like the name, although Franny Billingsley sounds, I think, more friendly. That's why I use it on my books, but my middle name, Newberry, comes from an ancestor of mine who built a famous library in Chicago called the Newberry Library. I like to think that it ties me to a literary tradition.