Humans of USU: Writing Center director opens up about books, her name
The Utah Statesman interviewed Star Coulbrooke, director of the Utah State University Writing Center, coordinator of Helicon West and professor of poetry.
Utah Statesman: What’s your favorite part about your job here?
Star Coulbrooke: My favorite part is the students. Since I get to work with students every day, who are my very best people, I am just really lucky. …You know what I love about students? They do the most surprising things. And (they) are all so damn smart. I can’t even keep up any more.
US: What’s most challenging about directing the Writing Center?
SC: It isn’t one bit like herding cats. People might think if you have 60 tutors it would be really difficult, but it really isn’t. Everything just runs really smoothly. … It’s really challenging to make the Writing Center work for everybody. It’s free to every student at Utah State University, no matter who it is, but sometimes we’ll get Ph.D. students with dissertations, and in the meantime we have thousands of 1010 and 2010 students who really need our help, so it’s hard to fit everybody in.
US: What’s the story behind your first name?
SC: I was getting a divorce after 23-and-a-half years of marriage, and you can change your name when you get a divorce. So my almost 18-year-old daughter and I totally changed our names in their entirety: first, middle and last names. And it was so cool, and we did it together, and we he had to go before a judge. … I’ve had this really great name ever since. I had people help me create my name; I knew I wanted something to do with the stars and the sky and the universe and the streams and the forests, so my name was Star, as in the skies, and Coulbrooke, as in cool mountain spring, with a lot of extra vowels because I love vowels.
US: Where’s the coolest place you’ve ever traveled?
SC: The Oneida Narrows Canyon, with this rugged dirt road. … The flowing river and a bunch of old caves and gorgeous mountain maples and cedars, and there are deer and eagles and all kinds of little animals. I just love that place, and it was at the back door of the place where I lived. I haven’t traveled a lot overseas. The farthest I’ve been is to New Orleans, and my sweetie and I have driven to every one of the western states. I love going places if we can drive and I can do it on my own time and in my own way. I hate to travel by plane. I get all swollen up.
US: If you had to recommend a life-changing novel or poem to a student, what would it be?
SC: Rachel Carson, “Silent Spring.” Everyone should read that, especially because our environment is in so much trouble. So that’s (one) everyone should read. I think everyone should read Terry Tempest Williams. Even though I’m not a great fan of some of her later work, a life changing book for many people I am told is Terry Tempest Williams’ “Refuge.” It didn’t totally change my life, but it’s changed a lot of other people’s lives. Adrienne Rich, as a poet, really gave me a lot to think about. I guess the poet I admire most for the style and the philosophy and just the emotional bend in my life would be Stephen Dunn. I wrote my undergrad final project on Stephen Dunn’s work, and somehow his poems are so down to earth and so much about people and the way people think and the way they act. He wrote the best poem about love, and it goes on for pages and pages, and it’s about the things that he loves. Those are just some.
US: Do you have a mantra or theme you live by?
SC: I just like to think that everybody is a good person and everybody has something that you can admire, no matter what they’ve done and who they are. Everybody has a life that’s meaningful in some way.
US: What books are you currently reading?
SC: I’m reading “The Omnivore’s Dilemma (: A Natural History of Four Meals” by Michael Pollen) because I’ve never had time, and I stopped by the USU Bookstore on my way through the (Taggart Student Center) to see what they have on sale, and there it was. So I’m reading it very slowly so that I can talk with my sweetie about it because he was diagnosed with cancer last year, and he quit drinking soda pop and he tried to quit most of the sugar. Sugar feeds cancer, so he got really healthy even though he has terminal cancer. I decided to share “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” with him because it’s all about the danger of industrialized food. I’m also reading all the poetry books of the writers who presented at Helicon West this year, so the poetry books and the fiction and young adult fiction. … And then I always read Poetry Magazine and Poets & Writers Magazine. … I read “The Book Thief,” and I’m reading the next book by the guy who wrote (it). I’m going to start reading that when I have surgery. I’m trying to amass a bunch of books because I’m having shoulder surgery in December, and so I have to take six weeks leave for it to heal, so I’m so excited to read books. I can’t wait. I love all the classics, the Flannery O’Connor and all the old story and essays. I can’t think of all the names right now. And I love the contemporaries who do the essays and poetry. And creative nonfiction. I read all the poets I can get my hands on and all the creative nonfiction I can get my hands on and all the memoirists I can get my hands on. That’s hundreds and hundreds of books. I’m always reading at least 12 books at a time, but while I’m teaching and directing and doing Helicon, I don’t have much time so I go slowly. I like to delve into them.