Solaris Santaella | they/them/theirs
Who are you?
I’m Solaris Santaella! I spend my life in a whirl of creative chaos, writing, making music, reteaching myself Russian after forgetting it all post-undergrad, analyzing books to shreds, and studying my craft(s) voraciously.
Okay, but what do you actually do?
Well, I have a day job at an office, but I think the less we define ourselves by our labor, the better.
As for what I do here, I post tidbits of my writing, updates on my creative process and upcoming projects, advice, and more!
What mediums/genres do you write in?
I’m a novelist first and foremost, though I occasionally mess around with poetry, and my short story “Lemon Squares in All Dimensions” was awarded an honorable mention in the Writers of the Future competition in the first quarter of 2024.
Genre-wise, I hate being limited, but I lean pretty hard into sci-fi and fantasy. That said, my debut novel, Francisca and the Forgotten, is YA Gothic Horror. Speculative fiction in all forms will always have my heart.
What do you write about?
I write stories about fantastical or futuristic worlds that aren’t afraid to tackle the issues marginalized people face in this one.
One of my pet peeves is when representation is flattened into what I think of as “issue fiction,” and a character’s identity is the beginning, middle, and end of their story. Boring!
Being multiracial, disabled, and queer myself, I know that when people want representation, they need more than a list of symptoms or a set of stereotypes.
We want our cultures, hardships, and joys to be part of a complex tapestry alongside compelling plots, unique world building, interesting characters, and everything else that makes a story worth reading. Those are the books I want to read and the kind I try to write.
What do you like to read?
You can check out my Goodreads account for a more thorough answer, but in short—just about everything! Every book is a learning experience, even the terrible ones.
Here’s a quick top five!
- The Luzhin Defense by Vladimir Nabokov
- 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
- Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
- Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
My biases lean heavily toward literary fiction and adult sci-fi, but being a teenager during the YA boom of the 2010s also means I’ve read my fair share of teen dystopias, John Green novels, and love triangles…in spaaaace! I’ve also gotten into memoirs and medican non-fiction in the past few years, and Russian literature is a huge area of interest for me.
Where are you from?
Where aren’t I from? I grew up in a military family, so I was born in California, spent most of my childhood around the American Southwest (with a random year in Germany), followed by a decade or so in Anchorage, Alaska, then four years in Madison, Wisconsin. Now I’m back in Alaska—who knows for how long?
Of course, when you’re ethnically ambiguous-looking like I am, that question usually has an added layer of, “No, where are you really from?” or “You don’t look white! What’s what all about?” Sometimes I tell people I’m Polish just to shut them up. It’s technically true, on my mom’s side, and my pen name comes from a Polish novel—Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. Check it out if you like atmospheric, haunting sci-fi! There’s also a film of the same name by legendary Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky.
Anyway, I’m various shades of European on my mom’s side and Mexican and Puerto Rican on my dad’s side. Being raised mostly by my dad and mostly around other Mexicans, that’s where I get my strongest sense of identity.
I generally just call myself Latina—and no, not Latinx, not Latine, though no shame to anyone who uses those terms. The way I see it, Latina having a feminine ending doesn’t make me a woman anymore than a biblioteca is a woman. It’s how I grew up referring to myself, a part of my identity that goes deeper than gender.
Also, my great-grandmother on my dad’s side was Cheyenne. Although I don’t consider myself Cheyenne because I don’t really have any knowledge of the culture, it’s a part of my family’s heritage I don’t want to be forgotten.
Where did you go to school?
I graduated from high school with an IB Diploma (my scores were all over the place, from a barely-passing 3 in standard-level math to a 7 in higher-level English!) then went onto the University of Wisconsin-Madison for undergrad. I got a BA in English (concentration in creative writing) and certificate in Russian, Eastern European, and Central Asian Area Studies.
After a few years, I decided to go back to school, and I got an MA in Publishing from Western Colorado University’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing, which I can’t recommend enough! I graduated in the class of 2024, which was responsible for publishing the anthology Feisty Felines and Other Fantastical Familiars as well as my capstone project, a reprint of Of One Blood: Or, The Hidden Self by Pauline Hopkins, available here!
Why did you decide to go into publishing?
Choosing to pursue a publishing MA instead of a more straightforward creative writing MA/MFA was a difficult decision for me. Spending two to three years focusing on my writing sounds like a dream, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t jealous going to all the thesis readings for the MFA students.
But I didn’t get a publishing degree to have fun (although I did have a pretty good time). I did it to make a difference.
Yes, the world needs diverse writers to share their complex stories, but these writers need advocates. Systemic inequality is rife within the publishing industry. Fewer than twenty percent of editors are people of color, and, even as readers clamor for diverse books and #ownvoices, white authors continue to dominate sales.
I can write without a master’s degree, but I can’t be the best possible advocate for my fellow marginalized creatives within publishing unless I know the industry inside and out.
How do you plan to advocate for marginalized authors?
I don’t work in publishing (yet), but I’ve already had a few incredible advocacy opportunities within my MA classes.
My reprint of Of One Blood is the best example. I wanted to highlight an overlooked work by an author of color—in this case, Pauline Hopkins. She was an inspiration to many Black authors today, to include Eden Royce, who wrote the foreword.
Eden has also written some great Black Gothic Horror for younger readers and will be making her adult debut with Psychopomp and Circumstance in October.
I also advocated for inclusion within my cohort’s group project, the Feisty Felines anthology. My favorite story—no spoilers!—features a young queer character, and I convinced my classmates to vote it through the final round. I also got to work with Pines Callahan, the story’s incredibly talented author, as an editor.
Blah, blah, blah. Words, words, words. I want a PICTURE! What do you look like?
Like a little brown field mouse hastily transmogrified into a human. Or like this.
How can I contact you?
You can send business inquiries to solarissantaella@gmail.com.
THE SOLARIUM 