Resume

EDUCATION

M.A., English, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1975.
A.B., magna cum laude, with Distinction in English, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, 1973.

CURRENT

Novel in progress: The Romantics

On a college campus in 1970–the Age of Aquarius–close friends Mamie and Max fall out when his homosexuality is revealed to her, forcing each to weigh their priorities from a distance: love, pride, privacy–and each other. A historical novel, it is set in a world when homosexuals were closeted, and their female friends were “fag-hags.”

RECENT

Upper Hand Press, LLC. Owner and Publisher. Independent literary press, 2014-2020.

Selected, edited, and published 12 books, by new and established authors.

BOOKS

She Can Find Her Way: Women Travelers at Their Best, Editor, 2017.
Four-volume anthology of essays by women who have traveled solo and encountered trouble on the road.
Sounding Our Depths: The Music of Morgan Powell,2014. Criticism with 72-minute CD.

BLOG

Starr Review, (http://starr-review.blogspot.com).
Blog review of contemporary fine art and music, 2011-2016.
Finalist, Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grants for 2012.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

These examples reflect my engagement with art in several capacities.

“Music in Words: Is Music Criticism a Form of Translation?”, Levure littéraire no. 14 (2018)
“Long Life!,” Ars Medica: A Journal of Medicine, The Arts and Humanities, Vol 13, no. 21 (2018).
“What Won’t Kill You,” Eclectica, on-line magazine, October/November, 2011.
“Choosing My Own Doctor,” Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine. Ed. Howard Spiro. October 2001. Solicited article.
“leopardpeople/burning child,” introductory essay in Nils D. Dicaz, Leopardpeople: Eineinstallation in der Camp Gallery, Mt. San Angelo, Virginia, USA. Berlin: Lukas Verlag, 2000.
New Music Box, articles, 2009-2011:
- “Sounds Heard: “Spark of Being”—Music by Dave Douglas, Film by Bill Morrison,” April 2011.
- “Sounds Heard: Eric Lund—‘by the line of the arc that they form,’” February 2011.
- “Sounds Heard: Steve Butters—“Oomaharumooma,” October 2010.
- “Moving Away from the Center of Jazz: Thomas Wirtel, a.k.a. Thomas Shabda Noor,” August 2010.
- “Morgan Powell on the Creative Process: The Reality of Maborosi,” October 2009.
- “Interview with Morgan Powell,” Perfect Sound Forever, July 2009.
- Dancing with the Ramblers, The Tone Road Ramblers, Einstein Records, New York, 2008. Liner notes to music by Morgan Powell, John Fonville, and Eric Mandat.

SELECTED LECTURES

Cannibal Appetites. State University of New York at Cortland, 2004.
Reflections of a Mad Artist. D’Arcy Art Museum of the Loyola University of Chicago and Hektoen Institute for Medical Research, 2004.
Love in a Small Place: Straight Girl and Gay Boy in and out of the Closet. Kenyon College, 2002.
Medicine's Clinical Representations of Abnormal Human Bodies. Illustrated with clinical photographs and with slides of Starr’s visual art. Society for Literature and Science, Buffalo 2001.
Doctors and Patients in Visual Relation. Yale University School of Medicine, 2001.
The Body Inside Me. Illustrated with Starr’s visual art. Barnard College Feminist Art and Art History Conference, New York 2001.
Medical Normality or Social Normality? Images of Human Infants and Fetuses with Visible Physical Abnormalities.” Magdalene College, Cambridge, 2001.
“I Tell You No Lies: Narration from Bipolar Illness.” Davis Lecture in Medical Ethics. University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine; 7th International Congress on the History of Medicine, Galveston, Texas; Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Post-Doctoral Program, Pritzker School of Medicine, University of Chicago, 2000.
The Artist, Her Doctor, and Relational Portraits. Illustrated with historical images and slides of Starr’s visual art. National Portrait Gallery, London. Cosponsored by the British Society for the History of Science; organized by Ludmilla Jordanova, 2000.
The Body: Sensation, Fantasy, and Medical Knowledge, Northwestern University Medical School, 1999.
Book Artists’ Round Table, organized by the Center for Book Arts, New York, at Connecticut College, 1999.
Under My Skin: Curriculum Vitae, Story, and the Book,” Pennsylvania State University, 1997.

GRANTS AND AWARDS

Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, residency, 2012
Finalist, Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Grants for Arts Writers, Blog category, 2012.
Richard J. Margolis Award of the Blue Mountain Center, Finalist, 2008.
Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Sweet Briar, Virginia. Artist residencies, 1996-2001, 2005, 2013.
The Ragdale Foundation, Lake Forest, Illinois. Artist residencies 1995-2007, 2018.
Reynolds Associates Fellowship, Historical Collections of the Lister Hill Library, University of Alabama at Birmingham Medical School, 2001.
Purchase prize awarded by Jan Howard, Eleventh Annual National Drawing and Print Competitive Exhibition, College of Notre Dame of Maryland, 1999.
Resident Research Grant, Francis Clark Wood Institute for the History of Medicine of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 1999.
Professional Development Grant, Massachusetts Cultural Council, 1998.
Purchase prize awarded by Janet Bishop, 1996 Stockton National Print and Drawing Exhibition.

TEACHING AND SERVICE

TEACHER/WORKSHOP LEADER

School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Developed and taught “Artists and Mental Illness.” 2006.

Northwestern University Medical School. Classes on “Alternative Anatomy,” and “Inhabiting Authority,” through having students make their own medical books. 2004, 2003, 2001, 2000.

University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, Medical Education Department, special topics seminar, “Alternative Anatomy.” 2001.

Pennsylvania State College of Medicine. National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute. 2002.

Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center, Chicago. Clinical Pastoral Care Residency Program, workshop leader. 2001.

VISITING ARTIST

School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2006, 2005.

University of Chicago, 2000.

College of the Holy Cross, Massachusetts, 2000.

Wellesley College, Massachusetts, 2000.

Pennsylvania State University, 1997.