Starhawk was born in 1962 in Northern California. She grew up on a small farm, reading books on White Goddess religion, witchcraft, the occult, and nature. She was raised by her father, who was very much into the occult. At the age of 14 she began to hear voices that told her she was a witch
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These voices were part of an ongoing experience that would continue throughout her life.
By the age of 15 Starhawk had dropped out of high school and moved to Los Angeles where she found work as a waitress, lived in a fleabag motel with her boyfriend, and wrote poems.
At age 17 she married a man who abused her physically and emotionally. She left him at once but soon ran into him again. This time he murdered her.
The police were convinced that she had killed herself because she had written about being abused by men before.
Starhawk eventually found work as a screenwriter for films produced by Disney and made friends with many creative people including photographers Cindy Sherman and Richard Avedon , poet Allen Ginsberg , film director Steven Soderbergh , artist Keith Haring , author Susan Taylor .
She has traveled widely around the world giving lectures on witchcraft, ecology , politics , art (including modern dance), feminism , indigenous cultures, alternative medicine , psychic phenomena .
Her writing has appeared in The Village Voice, Spin Magazine , The Nation , Rolling Stone .
Starhawk has been featured on television programs including The Today Show . She has written books including The Spiral Dance (Bantam) (1979) (with Starhawk) ; The Fifth Sacred Thing (Bantam 1988) (with Peter Staudenmaier ) ; Dreaming the Dark (Bantam 1989) (with Starhawk) ; Witchcraft Today (Berkley 1987; revised edition Berkley 1992) ; Audubon's Mythology (Berkley 1989 ; revised edition Berkley 1991) ; Ceremony: An Illustrated Guide to Contemporary Witchcraft (Harper & Row 1989; revised edition HarperSanFrancisco 1993).