![[Under Construction]](_borders/me1-nojacket-web.jpg)
Richard Dean Starr
(No, Richard doesn't look like most of the pictures below. He was younger and 60 pounds lighter.
- Webmaster)
Richard Dean Starr
with friend, actor
Lou Diamond Phillips,
circa 1994
Richard Dean Starr
with #1 New York Times best-selling author
Dean Koontz,
in L.A. circa 1991
(picture water damaged in a move)
Richard Dean Starr
and longtime friend,
author Tim Powers,
September, 2002
Richard Dean Starr
and Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise, with "From the Earth to the Moon" author Andy Chaikin admiring Richard's "Moon" crew shirt,
November, 2002
Richard Dean Starr
with friend, Star Wars author Timothy Zahn,
circa 2003
Richard Dean Starr
and F. Paul Wilson, author of "The Keep" and creator of Repairman Jack,
circa 1989
Richard Dean Starr and George R. R. Martin, author and Story Editor for the television show, "Beauty and the Beast," with Alex Eisenstein,
circa 1990
Richard Dean Starr, friend and "Star Wars" actor David Prowse (Darth Vader), and assistant during a VIP tour of Universal Studios, circa 1993.
Welcome to my Biography Page!
This page will tell you a little bit about me and some of the things I'm interested in.
Be warned, it's basically the same page as the one found on my copywriting web site, ExpertCopywriter.com. So if you've already read that bio, then you'd read all of this already. Do something more constructive with your time, like buy and read my books (and if you can do both simultaneously, I want to meet you).
I
first began writing professionally at the age of 17, for a small Los
Angeles trade newspaper. Over
the
past twenty years,
I have published over 200 articles, stories, features
and columns.
I'm a former
member of the Science Fiction Writers of America and the Georgia Press
Association, and was one of the youngest members in the latter
organization's history. My work has appeared in Starlog,
Science Fiction Chronicle, and many other magazines. In
addition to my magazine work, I'm also the former Entertainment Editor
and film critic for the Southeast Georgian and Camden Country
Tribune newspapers, now consolidated as the
Tribune & Georgian.
I'm currently an active
I'm also proud to have recently joined Moonstone Books as an editor and Special Projects Coordinator. In this capacity, I will be supervising the first reprinting of Jeff Rice's original Kolchak: The Night Stalker novels in more than thirty years. Featuring cover art by my good friend, bestselling media illustrator and artist Keith Birdsong (Star Trek, Star Wars, Xena, and many more), this landmark publication will be published in both limited edition and trade states. I'm also consulting Project Manager on Doc Savage: The Unproduced Radio Scripts, the first new Doc Savage material to see print in twenty years, and will be editing the first original Zorro fiction anthology in half a century.
My Hellboy story,
"Unfinished Business", co-authored with New York Times
bestselling novelist Ed Gorman (Dean Koontz's Frankenstein: City of
Night) appeared in the
Hellboy:
Odder Jobs anthology, edited
by Christopher Golden. "The
Shadow That Shapes the Light", also written with Ed Gorman, appeared in
the anthology Kolchak:
The Night Stalker Chronicles, which went
on to receive a Bram Stoker nomination for best anthology of the year
from the
Horror Writers of America (HWA). One of my favorite stories to
date, "Fear
Itself", appeared in the special Stephen King Halloween issue of
Cemetery Dance magazine in October, 2005.
My new Kolchak story, "Bones of the Past", is scheduled to be released in the Fall of 2006 in the inaugural anthology, Kolchak: The Night Stalker Casebook (Volume I). My next short story, "Lessons Learned", stars the world's first costumed superhero, The Phantom, and is scheduled for release in early 2007. This significant anthology marks the first appearance of Phantom prose fiction since the 1970's, when a string of novels, written by Phantom creator Lee Falk, were published.
Personal
Interests:
Fortunately, my life isn't all about sitting in front of a computer!
I'm also an avid
scuba
diver, hiker,
and
mountain biking enthusiast, and take every
available opportunity to travel and experience everything that life has to offer. To that end, I've traveled through all 48 contiguous
U.S.
states and extensively in both Mexico and Canada.
I've
hiked to the remote cliff dwellings of the ancient
Anasazi in Arizona and New Mexico (Yes, some of them are quite a long
hike out; bring lots of water! I've
also visited Acoma, the famous pueblo known as Sky City (before
Caucasians were allowed
in only by bus), dove the remote caverns of Florida's famous springs
(there's nothing like several million gallons of rushing spring water to
get you back on top...literally!), and canoed for a week on the Colorado
River (during which I became violently ill from exposure to
polluted water).
In my younger years, I even found myself less than
a fifty yards from the
Space Shuttle just minutes after its landing at Edwards Air
Force Base in California, separated from the spacecraft by little more
than an easement
t and a twelve foot high chain link fence. Watching
the steam rising from the shuttle as it was hosed down is a sight I'll remember for the
rest of my life.
I'm a native of the Los Angeles area and was born at
Harbor General hospital in Torrance
, the
real hospital
portrayed on the
classic TV show,
"Emergency." I also
attended
Torrance High School, which
appeared as Sunnydale High in the hit TV series
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
(That's L.A. for you...one big film location!).
I recently returned to L.A. (and copywriting!) after thirteen years in Florida to pursue a career in film. Copywriting allows me to pick and choose the film projects with which I am associated. I was recently Production Coordinator and Assistant Unit Production Manager on Wednesday Again, starring Richmond Arquette, Brad Heller, Mick Berry, and Hollywood legend Marty Ingels. I'm currently co-producing Space Reserved, a feature film scheduled for production sometime in 2008.