Interview with Crime Writer Burl Barer – S. 5, Ep. 7

Debbi Mack interviews crime writer Burl Barer on the Crime Cafe podcast. Read along to the podcast or, if you're in a rush, download a copy of the show notes here. And between you, me, and the rest of Internet, Burl is hilarious! Give it a listen folks. And, like I said, feel free to read along! Debbi: [00:00:12] Hi, everyone. This is the Crime Cafe, your podcasting source of great crime, suspense and thriller writing. I'm your host, Debbi Mack. Before I bring on my guest, I'll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two e-books for sale: the nine-book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy links for both on my website DebbiMack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You'll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so. Debbi: [00:01:02] Hi everyone. Before I get started, I'd like to give a hale and hearty shout-out to my first Patreon contributor Ken MacClune, not to mention his awesome wife, Karen, and their amazing daughter, Ella. Okay, I suppose I should, in the interest of full disclosure, say that Ken is my brother. But having given support to my Patreon page, to this podcast, he has gotten his free copy of---well, not free, but for the support, he has gotten with that a copy of my fourth Sam McRae novel, which is coming out this month, Deep Six. And by taking advantage of a limited time special offer, he was able to get this. So more of those are coming. So keep your eye on that Patreon page. I'll try to keep you updated as fast as I can. And, on that note, I'd like to introduce a very special guest. Not only is this author an investigative journalist and true crime author, he is also an Edgar award-winning author of the Saint novels, which is really cool in my book. How many of you remember the episodes with Roger Moore? I know I do. It's my pleasure to have with me today Burl Barer. Hi Burl. How are you? Burl: [00:02:26] Better and better every day, in every way. Debbi: [00:02:28] That's great. Burl: [00:02:30] There was a French psychologist named Emile Coue. And he believed that if you stood in front of the mirror and told yourself that like 20 times, that sooner or later you'd believe it. I've been trying it now for about 30, 40 years. I'm not convinced, but I'm giving it a shot. Debbi: [00:02:49] Yeah, it's very interesting because I've heard about that. It's kind of like ... Hmmm? Really? Burl: [00:02:54] Positive reinforcement. Debbi: [00:02:58] I think there's something to that. I think there's a lot to this whole idea of visualization and so forth. Burl: [00:03:04] I know. I've visualized a lot of really interesting things in my life that I'd probably be arrested for. But in the world of visualization, all things are okay. Debbi: [00:03:14] There you go. I was looking over your bio and bibliography and I was deeply impressed by the range of your work. Did you start your career as a journalist, in journalism as a writer? Burl: [00:03:31] Yeah, well, it's hard to say what we want to admit. I started my career as a small child. My mother was a newspaperwoman and my father smelled of elderberries. We have journalism and that sort of thing in the family history, family background. My mother was a newspaper woman. Her brother Sid Copeland wrote for Life Magazine, Time magazine. He was later Vice President of Cold & Weber public relations. My sister was a gossip columnist, I mean, uh, society editor. That's what you want to call it. And she wrote books and my cousin Helen writes books. My cousin Shoshana Barer writes books. I mean, it's kind of, you know, if you grow up in a family of opera singers, being an opera singer is perfectly normal. You grow up in a family of writers, being a writer is perfectly normal. I can't fix a car. If you want me to do that, I'm terribly sorry. I don't know how.