About the Author

Starhawk is one of the prominent voices in modern earth-based spirituality. She is the author or coauthor of thirteen books, including The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess, The Empowerment Manual: A Guide for Collaborative Groups, on group dynamics, power, conflict and communications, and the now-classic ecotopian novel The Fifth Sacred Thing, now in development for film and television. http: //www.thefifthsacredthing.com/ In 2016, Starhawk founded Califia Press and published City of Refuge, the long-awaited sequel to The Fifth Sacred Thing. Her works have been translated into Spanish, French, German, Danish, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Czech, Greek, Japanese, and Burmese. Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority, and Mystery won the Media Alliance Meritorious Achievement Award for nonfiction in 1988. The Fifth Sacred Thing won the Lambda award for best Gay and Lesbian Science Fiction in 1994. Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising won a 2003 Nautilus Award from the trade association NAPRA. Her first picture book for children, The Last Wild Witch, won a silver Nautilus from NAPRA in 2010. Starhawk is one of the prominent leaders in the revival of earth-based spirituality and Goddess religion. She is a cofounder of Reclaiming, an activist branch of modern Pagan religion. Her archives are maintained at the Graduate Theological Union library in Berkeley, California. In the late '80s she consulted on and co-wrote the popular trio of films known as the Women's Spirituality Series, directed by Donna Read Cooper for the National Film Board of Canada: Goddess Remembered, The Burning Times, and Full Circle. Starhawk and Donna Read Cooper formed their own film company, Belili Productions, to make documentaries on women and the earth, In 2004 they produced Signs Out of Time, a documentary on the life of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas, the scholar who made major discoveries about the Goddess cultures of Old Europe. In 2010, they released Permaculture: The Growing Edge. She is a founder of Earth Activist Trainings (EAT), which teaches permaculture design grounded in spirit and with a focus on organizing and activism. Together with Charles Williams, Pandora Thomas and others, she co-teaches EAT courses in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Since its first course in May of 2001, Earth Activist Trainings has graduated over 1000 students who now shepherd projects that range from community power-down strategies in Iowa City to water catchment programs in Bolivia, from inner city gardens in San Francisco to programs in the West Bank of Palestine. She holds a B.A. in Fine Arts from U.C.L.A. In 1973, as a graduate student in Film at U.C.L.A, Starhawk won the prestigious Samuel Goldwyn Creative Writing Award. She received an M.A. in Psychology with a concentration in Feminist Therapy from Antioch University West in 1982. She is presently adjunct faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Starhawk travels internationally, lecturing and teaching permaculture, earth-based spirituality and ritual, and the skills of activism. She lives part-time in San Francisco, in a collective house with her partner and friends. But much of her time is spent on Golden Rabbit Ranch in Western Sonoma County, where together with land manager Charles Williams she is developing a model of carbon-sequestering ranching, incorporating holistic management rotational grazing with sheep and goats, restorative forestry, food forests and perennial systems. Starhawk was born on June 17, 1951. http: //starhawk.org/

Reviews

"Sensual and erotic, meticulously detailed, intellectually satisfying -and also action packed, intense, and incredibly touching all at once. In a word-visionary... Starhawk has written the story we have been waiting for, absolutely a must-read." - Vicki Noble, co-creator of Motherpeace Tarot, author of Shakti Woman and The Double Goddess Change is coming. Scientists offer statistics, politicians offer promises. But what will the changes, and the choices that are before us, mean? In City of Refuge, Starhawk demonstrates that the novelist makes the human impact of change real in a way that no report or speeches can. In this sequel to The Fifth Sacred Thing, she continues her saga of the conflict created by opposing values through the lives of the vividly portrayed characters who struggle to build a new world in all its complexity. Even in an egalitarian ecotopia people have issues, and even those brainwashed by the dystopian enemies of the City can heal. City of Refuge is a worthy addition to an emerging sub-genre of post-cataclysmic survival that includes The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler and Star's Reach by John Michael Greer, offering inspiration to respond to change by creating a new harmony. Diana L. Paxson, author of the Chronicles of Westria From Amazon reviews: "City of Refuge is not just a wonderful piece of fiction and the sequel to a great book, it offers the reader opportunities to explore different perspectives on how to accomplish complex challenging goals of liberation in a world where there are destructive, greedy cruel-intentioned people in power." "Highest recommendation for this grand, inspirational adventure which could make a big positive impact on the future of the world. Top of my criteria is that a read releases emotions and opens my heart. Many fine books make me cry once, at the climax, but City of Refuge is multi-orgasmic. The 1st 2 chapters brought healing tears to my cheeks 3 times already, whether in empathy with characters or tears of joy." "An evocative, descriptive, thrilling look at an alternate future - let's not call it a dystopian novel since it allows so much more room for hope than most of that genre...City of Refuge is a novel for anyone concerned about our future, hopeful for the promise of community solutions to climate change and ready to be inspired by a visionary look at what is possible. Not just theoretically possible but actually possible, especially with solutions like permaculture, water reuse, alternate forms of energy and different methods of sharing power and responsibility. This book is a GREAT read!"