The Twists and Turns that Brought Me to Writing

The desire dates way back, and as years went by, it was something I couldn’t not do. My mother, and sometimes my dad, read to me almost every night when I was little, which probably instilled that urge. In fact, I can’t remember a time I didn’t want to write. I used to make up stories before I could read or spell and my mother put them on paper for me. She kept them for years. Also, as soon as I was able, I began reading a great deal. My favorite gifts were books—Nancy Drew was especially appealing.

I liked to draw, too, so once I learned to write for myself, I created books complete with illustrations that I proudly presented to my mother and dad and sisters on their birthdays. Being the baby of the family, I received far more praise than I deserved, but their compliments definitely fed the fire of my ambition.

This changed when I started Antioch, a small liberal arts college in Ohio whose first president back in 1853 was famous educator, Horace Mann. Competition in writing was so heavy there among the students—Rod “Twilight Zone” Serling and his talented brother Robert, to name two—that it caused me to reassess my own abilities.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved Antioch College with a passion. It was a beautiful Ivory Tower, an accepting, evolving place where exciting and idealistic attendees were free to pursue their highest ambitions among the least stringent rules. Students took seriously the motto penned by Horace Mann: Be Ashamed To Die Until You’ve Won Some Victory For Mankind. During the years I attended, we lived by the “honor system.” It was great. Even yet, I get together with classmates as often as possible. Last time, just as when we were kids, my erstwhile roommate and I talked all night, catching up.

But because of my misgivings, I switched to my second love, art, and transferred to Central Academy of Commercial Art in Cincinnati. Afterwards, I opened an art business in Kentucky, painting everything from portraits and doll house furniture to illustrations in books. I also painted huge signs on billboards and the sides of buildings. Meanwhile I married, had children and lived all over the country and South America with my husband and four girls before settling down in Florida. (And yes, just in case you were wondering, we’ve been through a few hurricanes here. Hurricane Wilma in 2005 was a real blast. We’ve also had film companies make movies on our beach, i.e. Men In Black2 and TV’s CSI: Miami. And oh yes, we haven’t forgotten the “hanging chad” fiasco of 2000.)

There is something about Florida that seems to bring out the creative urges in residents, and suddenly I was struck again by the desire to write.

I took courses, then answered ads. I began by writing columns in newspapers. Eventually, I did every type of newspaper work from editing and layout to features, hard news and editorials. Sometimes I created entire sections and did some cartooning and line drawings, too. I wrote several columns under different names. There was seldom a dull moment in my newspaper work. I didn’t become rich, but the bonuses were great. I interviewed movie stars—had tea with Darth Vader, for example, and observed Jerry Lewis acting—and went on location to watch Chris Robinson making movies. I rode a sailboat to Bimini with aeronauts, met “Lurch” of Adams Family fame, rode a hot air balloon twice, found lost dogs, located long lost relatives (before the Internet), and solved a couple of mysteries, including the investigation of a haunted house.

Next I wrote for local magazines, then national magazines where I became very involved in true crime stories.

What made me turn from feature writing to true crime? Well, to begin with, I’d always enjoyed reading detective stories. I liked learning that the good guys had outsmarted the bad—that right had overcome evil. I enjoyed the puzzle aspect of the crime solving. I was also intrigued by the psychological aspect, that touch of fate that turned some people into criminals.

On the other hand, the real reason I began to write the true crime genre was another one of those meant-to-be kinds of things.

When a young guy ran into a restaurant in Delray screaming to the “regulars” at the counter that his apartment next door was haunted, one person who heard him yell told him to call “Julie Malear at the Post,” and added that I was a “ghost buster.”

It so happened that the man who was trying to help had been featured in the stories I wrote while investigating his haunted house the year before. Following that man’s advice, the apprehensive newcomer tracked me down at The News, where I’d transferred. The paper phoned me at home, not willing to give out my number and I, in turn, returned the call to the upset man at a payphone. (This was before most people had cell phones.) He sweet-talked, hoping I would “solve” his problem. I felt for the man; he claimed blood was running down his walls, his roommate had gone crazy, and he was sure someone had been murdered in the apartment and was currently haunting him. It sounded as if drugs might be involved, although he claimed not. But since I was doing straight columns for The News, I told him I couldn’t justifiably run down this story. Instead, I gave him several suggestions and promised to call back the next day at the pay phone. This went on for a week with him growing more and more agitated. Although I had intense doubts that blood was running down his walls, he believed it. I told him I’d call the police and see if something could be checked out for him.

When I made the call, a sergeant (later he became a lieutenant) told me that indeed a death had taken place at that same apartment. A man about the same age as my caller had been stabbed while dancing at a lounge in Delray, then had returned to his apartment and bled to death there. To be helpful, the police sergeant told me that the police had a spray that would indicate if the red residue on his walls was, in truth, blood. (I later learned that was Luminol.) He promised to take care of it.

Oddly enough, however, when we were finished discussing the “case of the bloody wall,” he told me that he believed “fate” had put us in touch. He’d been working on a book about one of his cases with a reporter from the Miami Herald, but the man had been transferred to Washington, DC and couldn’t finish the story. He told me he’d read my work in the paper and liked my style. He asked me to take over the writing about his murder case because he thought it was a really great case. I told him if I did the story, I could only promise to do it for a magazine and couldn’t guarantee it would even sell since I’d only been writing locally. I had no national connections at that time. This was fine with him, he said. Before long, he brought a huge file to me and asked that I try.

I did, and when the tale was typed, I tried to find a magazine to buy it. Eventually my query ended up at Reese Publications in New York, a well established publishing house that did over 50 percent of the true crime stories in the USA. When I didn’t hear back, I phoned—a “no no” for writers, usually, but it did pay off. Editor Rose Mandelsberg phoned me back saying that an editor who had since been fired had mislaid my info and as a result she wanted me to send it directly to her, Rose, which I did. She sent me a check immediately and said I’d gotten their style immediately and she wanted me to be their South Florida correspondent. She and Art Crockett—who to my delight had also been the editors of my favorite TC writer, Anne Rule—then began an editor/writer relationship with me that lasted many years.

At one point, they had me assist and do research for another of their writers on a paperback about a killer; he also had me write a chapter for the book. I learned a lot. In fact, I learned enough to write a full-length true crime of my own. During its writing and investigating, I heard from people all over the world, and my life was threatened three times. Sort of scary . . . but that’s another story. Before that book could ever become published, a producer purchased the manuscript with the intention of some day making it into a movie.

Paperbacks came next, and encyclopedia entrees, after which came a hardback, an anthology and a novel. (Please check these at my Books Page and read a chapter or two.)

At present, I’m turning some of my books into screenplays—a completely new form of literature for me. I’m also working on a detective story—the first of a series; and a sequel to my novel More Precious Than Rubies. In a drawer of my office, I have a stack of stories I’ve written about Florida that I hope to make into a book one of these days.

Meanwhile, just in case I might have "too much spare time," I'm vice president in charge of programs for the Boca Branch of the National League of American Pen Women, a member of Mystery Writers of America, of Florida Freelance Writers' Association, of Seacrest Neighbors (for whom I write a monthly newsletter,) of Mensa, and of a 25-year-old critique group of excellent writers. The group was honored when its name was chosen by a new small press in South Florida after the company had acquired some of the group's prize-winning work to use in a colorful book of short stories and novel chapters.  The name in both cases is Anrald—an acronym for Absolutely No Resemblance to Anyone Living or Dead, the disclaimer often found in the front of books of fiction.

To add a personal touch to my bio, I'm blessed with four married daughters and their families that I love, and a very interesting assortment of friends, neighbors, relatives and acquaintances for whom I am grateful. I like to swim, make sculptures in the sand, explore, read, learn, see movies, and sometimes cook.  And you know what I think? Life isn't long enough to do all I have in mind. How about you?

Anyway, thanks for visiting my website, and good luck to you!

— Julie Malear