Lynn Santer
Lynn Santer is an internationally acclaimed film producer and best-selling author.
Her debut novel, “Sins of Life” became the #1 selling title for its publisher and was optioned by Zygi Kamasa, involved in the “Kingsman” franchise, “Olympus has Fallen”, “The Expendables 2”. Since then, she has authored or ghosted over fifty titles. Her documentary films exposing the brutal truths behind the trophy hunting industry have received international acclaim and won at film festivals worldwide.
Residing on a tranquil lake in Australia has been the inspiration for her animal adventure novels “Swan Song” and “The Dragon Who Found His Wings”. “Swan Song” went straight to #1 on Kindle in Australia, and was awarded the coveted Readers Favorite Award and Golden Wizard Award for Book Excellence UK. Both books are being looked at for animated musical feature adaptation.
Facebook: @lynnsanter1
What brings you great joy?
This is the easiest question for me to answer. Without a doubt, the thing that brings me the most joy is being around animals, preferably wild animals. I am blessed to live on a 17 hectare lake that is festooned with wildlife. We have over 30 species of birds, including pelicans, rainbow lorikeets, black swans, a large variety of duck species, several other parrot species, and more. We also have water dragons, turtles, blue tongue lizards, and in all candour a few species I would probably rather weren’t there! Over the 25 years I have lived here, I have formed close personal relationships with many of these animals and they have been the inspiration for my Mermaid Waters Series stories. Mermaid Waters is the name of the suburb I live in. However, I have not just been close to these animals. I have had very up close and personal experiences with big brown bears I have helped to rescue from the dancing bear trade in Turkey, cheetah that I helped to rehabilitate in Namibia, and wild lion that I have tracked on foot with my ranger in South Africa. As a child my greatest fantasy was to live surrounded by tame wild animals and I am blessed to have manifested this wish. My experiences in Africa have also led to me producing a series of internationally acclaimed and multi award-winning explosive documentaries that expose the nefarious underbelly of the trophy hunting industry.
Do you have another artistic outlet in addition to your writing? Do you sew? Paint? Draw? Knit? Dance?
I cook! Back in 2016, I suffered bilateral nerve damage to my arms. This not only meant that I had to reinvent myself as a writer, but it tragically also meant I had to give up playing my beautiful baby grand piano, which has been another enormous passion in my life. I loved to play everything from rock ‘n’ roll to Beethoven and Grieg. I really enjoyed thrashing out some of Hans Zimmer’s more robust compositions as well. Once this was no longer an option, I turned to cooking. This was actually a double edged sword as I live with and care for my mother who has a medical condition that prevents her from consuming salt. In this day and age it is almost impossible to purchase anything that does not contain salt. Therefore, I have had to become extremely creative with my cooking, using almost every herb and spice known to man, so I can create almost any cuisine to restaurant quality without using a single grain of salt. It has been both a challenge and a pleasure.
Vacation druthers… City or Rural destination? Why?
Africa! Rural, raw, and real Africa! When I was growing up in London, my father, who was involved in medical research, spent a lot of time in Africa. His passion was cinematography. He would return from his trips to Africa with David Attenborough style documentaries that he made and would show to me and my little friends in a cinema that he built in the attic of our London home. Consequently, I was mesmerised by this fascinating continent from a small child. By the time I visited Africa myself, I had begun taking pilot lessons. Through a sequence of very fluky circumstances, I happened to commence my first ever trip to Africa by piloting a 12 seater Cessna caravan over the Kruger National Park. This was something that was never going to happen in my lifetime, except it just did. From there things just got better. I was travelling alone and exploring the magnificence of Africa’s private Safari Parks with a private ranger, when we came across the pride of nine lionesses about 30 feet away from us on the flat. I had been told never to look a predator directly in the eyes as this is how predators recognise other predators. Predators have eyes that look forward, while herbivores have eyes that look sideways. Like Lott’s wife in the Bible, I just couldn’t help myself. I had to look the alpha lioness in her eyes. This is a moment that has been burned into my memory and I will take to my grave. I will swear with my dying breath that in the seconds that followed, she said to me, “Okay, fine. This is how this is going to go down. I’m going to take my pride and go left, and so long as you go right, there will be no blood spilled here today.” That is exactly what happened but my Ranger was completely mystified as to why I wasn’t terrified. The truth was, I was so full of awe and wonder and excitement, there was absolutely no room for fear. Nevertheless, on the way back to our jeep, I think he decided to test me because we spotted a very unusual tortoise. He pointed this tortoise out to me and said, “Isn’t it pretty?” I answered, “Yes. [pause] THERE ARE NINE LIONS BACK THERE!” He continued to ask me questions until he almost forced me to take a photo of this tortoise while I kept reminding him there were nine wild lions close by. He just grinned at me and shook his head.
Are there particular films that have influenced your writing?
I guess I would have to say that the Lion King has influenced my latest anthropomorphic animal adventure novels. The story, the characters, the setting, and of course the music, speak to my heart and soul. As a result, when I penned these latest novels, I wrote them deliberately with animated musical feature film adaptations in mind. I deliberately made them very visual, which wasn’t exactly hard to do! I also had songs in my head that were appropriate to the characters and some of the quirky expressions that they use. My stories have also been likened to Watership Down, Wind in the Willows, and A Bug’s Life.
What’s the oddest thing a reader has ever asked you?
Perhaps this isn’t an odd question, but what I constantly hear in the reviews of my latest novels is that the setting of Swamp Hen Island is fantasy fiction. It absolutely is not! This is a real island in the middle of a real lake that my living room overlooks. It is from there I have observed all of the characters, and the triumph and tragedies of their lives, that has inspired my storytelling. I can understand why people think that this is a fantasy fiction land but anyone who has visited my home knows that this is very very real.
