Burl Barer

True Crime Author, Speaker

Burl Barer is a Edgar Award winning author and two-time Anthony Award nominee with extensive media, advertising, marketing, and public relations experience.

Garnering accolades for his creative contributions to radio, television, and print media, Barer’s career has been highlighted in The Hollywood Reporter, London Sunday Telegraph, New York Times, USA Today, Variety, Broadcasting, Electronic Media, and on ABC’s Good Morning America.

Barer wrote, produced, and often voiced, national radio and television spots for such performing artists as Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, Billy Joel, Carly Simon, Eric Clapton, Moody Blues, Fleetwood Mac, Liza Minelli, Temptations, Four Tops, and many more.

Barer also created and produced national radio and/or television campaigns for Warner/Electra/Atlantic, Media One, Management III, and Seattle Pacific Industries.   Other national/regional clients have included Penzoil, Safeway, Superlube, Black Angus Restaurants, the Aladdin Theater for the Performing Arts, and the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas.

Barer wrote and produced the national electronic media campaigns for such cult classic films as King of Hearts, Harold and Maude, Ken Russell’s Mahler, Orson Welles’ F for Fake, The Four Musketeers, Academy Award winner The Man who Skied Down Everest, and the animated Allegro Non Tropo.  His credits also include audio production for the award winning PBS series Images of Indians, 20th Century Art, Stained Glass Masters, and numerous radio and television appearances both in the USA and abroad.

Barer also established the largest independent multi-system cable television advertising interconnect in America — now owned and operated by AT&T.  In addition to overseeing a staff of sixteen sales, marketing, and production professionals, Barer wrote and directed hundreds of television commercials for local and national markets, and supervised media buys in the continental United States and Hawaii.

A recipient of the Tri-Cities Advertising Federation Award for both radio and television , Barer also received the Seattle Design Association’s Gold Award for Writing , the Award of Merit from Art Direction Magazine, and the Bob Wiley Creative Award for Outstanding Radio Production.

While Barer contributed his media savvy to numerous publications and projects over the years, it was his internationally acclaimed 442 page critical/biographical study of Leslie Charteris’ enduringly different Robin Hood of Modern Crime, Simon Templar, which earned him the highest honor from the Mystery Writers of America — The 1994 Edgar Allen Poe Award.  The Saint: A Complete History in Print, Radio, Television, and Film not only received the Edgar, but also an Anthony Award nomination from the World Mystery Convention.

Contracted by the estate of Leslie Charteris to pen a minimum of three new novels in the popular Saint series, Barer wrote the well-receivedCapture the Saint, the first original Saint novel in thirteen years.  Film rights to this, and other Saint novels, were optioned and acquired by producer Robert Evans.  Paramount Pictures released the Saint, starring Val Kilmer, in 1997.  Barer’s novelization of the film’s screenplay, THE SAINT, published by Simon and Schuster Pocketbooks, has sold over 100,000 copies in English, and has been translated into French, Japanese, Hebrew, Chinese, and German.

At the request of Warner Brothers, Barer accompanied Mel Gibson, James Garner, and Jodie Foster on the set of the hit film Maverick, writing the colorful companion book to that rollicking, uproarious western.

Man Overboard: The Counterfeit Resurrection of Phil Champagne (1995), a wry and humorous genre-bending true crime adventure earned anomination for the coveted Anthony Award by the World Mystery Convention as Best True Crime Book of the Year.

Barer’s HEADLOCK, the first Jeff Reynolds Mystery, was released to rave reviews in August 2000, and Kensington Publishing released his non-fiction true-crime book, MURDER IN THE FAMILY, the same month as part of their Pinnacle True Crime series.

HEAD SHOT, another true crime for Pinnacle, published in October, 2001, followed by two more best-selling true-crime books, BODY COUNT (2002) and BROKEN DOLL (2004).  STEALTH (2005), a futuristic action novel based on the film of the same name, was written especially for the Japanese market.  Barer’s MOM SAID KILL (2009) was featured as an hour special on I.D.’s DEADLY WOMEN television series.  FATAL BEAUTY, coming in January 2011, was the basis for an episode of SNAPPED on the Oxygen Network.

Barer co-hosts the award winning TRUE CRIME UNCENSORED radio program on Outlaw Radio, serves as consultant on the new SAINT television series produced by Sir Roger Moore and Wm. J. Macdonald, and is currently writing RETURN OF THE SAINT, an all new Simon Templar adventure for the Estate of Leslie Charteris, creator of The Saint.

Burl Barer can speak to many social relevant issues.

To schedule Burl Barer for your next event contact:

ImaginePublicity    PO Box 14946    Surfside Beach, SC  29587     843.808.0859     contact@imaginepublicity.com