Enticing, heart wrenching, and darkly funny, the interconnected stories in The Artstars are set in creative communities--an art school, an illegal loft studio, a guerrilla street performance troupe--where teamwork and professional jealousy mix, and the artists grapple with economic realities and evolving expectations. A middle-aged poet, reeling from 9-11, fights homesickness, writer's block, and ladybugs at an artist's colony. A new empty-nester...