Starks, Richard 1947-

PERSONAL:

Born March 30, 1947, in Portsmouth, England; son of John (a naval architect) and Margaret (a writer) Starks; married Miriam Murcutt (a marketing director), October 5, 1978. Education: University of Aberdeen, B.Sc., 1968, M.Sc., 1969.

ADDRESSES:

Office—CommuniCorp, Inc., 41 North Rd., London N7 9DP, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Canadian Pulp and Paper Industry, Toronto, Ontario, technical editor, 1970-73; Financial Post, Toronto, assistant editor, 1973-76; Money Letter, Toronto, founder and editor, 1976-83; CommuniCorp, Inc., London, England, editorial director, beginning 1978.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Award of merit for distinguished financial reporting, Royal Bank of Canada, 1975, for series of articles on forest-based industries.

WRITINGS:

War of Nerves (fiction), PaperJacks (Markham, Ontario, Canada), 1977.

The Brood (fiction), Virgo Press (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1979.

Industry in Decline, James Lorimer and Co. (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1978.

(Editor) The How to Beat Inflation Book, Financial Education Services (Willowdale, Ontario, Canada), 1980.

The Broker (fiction), McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1981.

(With wife, Miriam Murcutt) Lost in Tibet: The Untold Story of Five American Airmen, a Doomed Plane, and the Will to Survive, Lyon's Press (Guilford, CT), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

Richard Starks once told CA: "Most writers talk about sales, advances, and royalties. It's agents who talk about art, literature, and culture. I have earned more money writing a 1,000-word article in a week than I have made writing a 100,000-word novel in a year. There must be a way of earning a living by writing fiction, but I haven't found it—at least, not yet. I'm just glad I don't write poetry."