About L. A. Starks
Texan L. A. Starks is the author of the award-winning Lynn Dayton thriller series: 1) 13 Days: The Pythagoras Conspiracy, 2) Strike Price, 3) The Second Law, and 4) Winner’s Curse.
Just named a B.R.A.G. Medallion winner, WINNER’S CURSE was also a finalist in both the 2026 Indies Today awards and the 2025 IAN (Independent Author Network) Book of the Year awards. THE SECOND LAW was a quarterfinalist in the 2023 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Competition, an Action/Adventure finalist in the 2020 National Indie Excellence Awards, and a mystery/thriller quarterfinalist in the 2019 BookLife Prize competition. The SECOND LAW and STRIKE PRICE also won first-place category awards from the Texas Association of Authors. Each book has received five-star reviews from readers.
Amazon invited her to beta-test its Virtual Voice software. Via Audible, she has now published Virtual Voice audiobook editions of all four of her books.
Starks’ short story “Risk Reduction” was chosen for the second SinC North Dallas anthology, Reckless in Texas. A previous short story, “Gumbo Filé,” was published in the Dreamspell Nightmares thriller anthology. “Essence of Genius, Genius of Essence” won honorable mention in WOW!’s Spring 2021 Flash Fiction contest. Two of her short stories, “Robert and Therese Guillard: Choices,” and “A Time for Eating Wild Onions,” were accepted and published by the Amazon Shorts program. Her short stories, “Incurable,” and “Josh Rosen and Bubbe,” are also available from Amazon.
Starks has been honored to participate in well over 200 author signings and interviews, including eighty author events at Barnes & Noble and independent bookstores.
L. A. Starks is a member (active status) of International Thriller Writers, Sisters in Crime, and Goodreads. A dedicated reader, she served six years on the board of the Friends of the Dallas Public Library.
Starks earned a B.S. (engineering, magna cum laude) at Tulane University in New Orleans and an MBA in finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where she played intramural basketball for the Efficient Mockettes. She worked for over a decade for well-known energy companies, with one project earning her co-authorship of a US Patent. Besides writing high-stakes thrillers, Starks was a paid contributor for several years on two Seeking Alpha platforms for her energy investment articles (over 700 articles, approximately 1.3 million words). She has run twenty-three half-marathons.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, she grew up and graduated from high school in Oklahoma. She was in the first group of 25 (out of 33,000+ graduates in over a century) inducted into the Ponca City (Oklahoma) High School Hall of Fame.
Her favorite recent international destinations are the Swiss and French Alps, Spain, and Japan.