Pen Name

Sienna Santerre is (or should be) pretty obviously a pen name. I purposely chose something that sounded a bit made-up and created a fictional character to be Sienna Santerre.

Why use a pen name at all? In part, to distance the ‘real’ me (who may be just as fictional when it comes down to it) from the subject matter of my books. That real me did graduate from Naples High in 1968. I did go through those times. I did know the kids that inspired some of my characters and would just as soon—if by chance they read my books and recognized something of themselves—they didn’t link any of it to me. Not that I've actually hidden my real name.

And not that I would fear an angry mob of codgers coming for my blood. Still, it freed me up, some, to write what I wanted, without any caution.

I’ll admit the name choice was perhaps inspired,  a little, by Elena Ferrante. After all, we both write about Naples, even if one sets her stories in Naples, Italy, and the other in Naples, Florida! To be sure, Santerre is a French name, not an Italian one.

Yes, we both write our fiction around a core of female friendship but there is not much resemblance beyond that. My characters live in a very different world, reflecting the culture and politics of the late Sixties. And, of course, they date surfers.

My second Women in the Sun novel came out on August 6, 2022. There may well be more in the series in time; I certainly didn’t wrap everything up with ‘One Christmas in the Sun,’ although it wouldn’t hurt a thing if I stopped there. I have ideas and notes and all of that, to be sure. We’ll just have to see—yeah, me too. I like to surprise myself.

Note: what with SS being a pen name, I am also turning out stories under other names, so I'm not malingering!

Facts

Some facts about the writing of “One Summer in the Sun”:

I was afraid the novel might sprawl to 100,000 words or more, but it came in at a trim and completely acceptable 88,000. That’s close to the ideal range for a book of its sort, from a commercial standpoint—not that I wrote with that in mind.

The novel ended up with more humor than I expected. It was first envisioned as bitter-sweet and a bit tragic. Oh, there is certainly some of that but there is also a fair amount of joking and banter.

I wasn’t sure until I was halfway through whether it would contain graphic sex. I’d written a couple scenes that at least bordered on it, scenes I could have edited if I chose not to go that way. As it turns out, the novel ended up with lots of sex. It will definitely need to be labeled as ‘adult content’.

“One Summer” is obviously being released under a pen name. That is not because of the sexual content (well, mostly not) but more because I lived through some of the events in its pages. I knew the time and place, and I’d just as soon no one connected me to it!

P.S. My publisher told me the book could be positioned as ‘New Adult.’ That would never have occurred to me. But then, the three protagonists and most of their friends are eighteen, so maybe he has something!