About Cynthia Starks

I’ve been writing since I could hold a pencil.  I’ve always loved a good story. Nancy Drew, Huck Finn, Stephen Crane, Edgar Allan Poe and Jane Austen are among my best friends.  I earned a B.A. in English and history and thought I’d be a teacher.  But my heart had other plans.

First, I got a job as a reporter at a weekly paper in Connecticut, where I was born.  I covered school board meetings and the police beat, wrote features and obits, and learned to “write tight” and write to deadline.  My editor once said, “It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to be done by Thursday.”  Me? I wanted it both ways.

From there I joined city government in New Haven, where I wrote grant applications, policy pieces, press releases and speeches for three mayors over a period of ten years.

I loved speechwriting most of all.  I enjoyed the research, using humor to connect speaker to audience, creating and explaining policy, the way a turn of phrase could make a speech “snap, crackle and pop,” and the way a good speech could make an audience think, feel or do.

After my turn in city government, I joined the private sector, writing speeches for the chairmen of  Southern New England Telephone (SNET) and Otis Elevator and for senior IBM executives.

I left IBM in 1993 to start my own speechwriting business.  Since then, I’ve written speeches for the chairmen of Deloitte & Touche, Pratt & Whitney and Country Home Bakers, as well as for many IBM and SNET executives. 

During my career, I’ve also written press releases, video scripts, communications plans, employee newsletters, policy pieces, annual reports, white papers and research projects.  You can see some of them on this site.

Creative writing is my other passion.  I wrote a weekly column, called “New View,” for the Zionsville (IN) Times Sentinel in 2008-09.  I’ve published magazine articles and essays.  And I’ve written a screenplay for a romantic-comedy, called “No Time for Charm,” that perhaps will sell one day (not on the site!).

I would be delighted to help you meet your business goals through creative and effective speeches. I invite you to browse the Web site and contact me; I’m very “user-friendly.”