Barbara’s latest book is Palm Springs Noir (Akashic), which she edited and contributed a story. Her venture into noir fiction began with the short story, “Crazy for You,” originally published in Akashic Book’s, Orange County Noir, later included in USA Noir: Best of the Akashic Noir Series. Her fiction and poetry have been published in Coolest American Stories 2022, CrimeReads, Dark City Crime & Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Crossing Borders, Shotgun Honey, The Literary Hatchet, Rock and a Hard Place, Paradigm Shifts, Broad River Review, Serial Magazine, Beach Reads, and The Oyez Review. Her first book, Pen on Fire: A Busy Woman’s Guide to Igniting the Writer Within, was a Los Angeles Times best-seller and honored with an American Society of Journalists and Authors Outstanding Book Award. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her short story, “Rowboat,” in Kelp Journal (Dec. 2023). In September 2025, Kelp Books will publish her debut short story collection, Pool Fishing.
This former journalist’s essays and articles have seen print in various publications including Inlandia, The Ocotillo Review, Antarctica Journal, CrimeReads, Abstract Expressions, Belle Ombre, Cutbank, The Author’s Guild Bulletin, Beach Reads, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Orange Coast Magazine, Westways, The Los Angeles Times, The Writer, Writer’s Digest, and Poets & Writers.
Barbara is an adjunct professor of Advanced Creative Writing at Saddleback College’s Emeritus Institute, and instructor at Gotham Writers Workshop (online). Barbara taught at Chapman University’s Dodge Film School. She also holds two private workshops. She is creator, executive producer, and host of the award-winning podcast, Writers on Writing, where she interviews authors, agents, and poets. The show began on KUCI-FM and is now podcast-only.
Barbara was recognized with a Distinguished Instructor Award at UC-Irvine and awarded Literary Magnet #1 in Orange Coast Magazine’s Best of Orange County. She is founder of the Pen on Fire Speakers Writers Salon in Corona del Mar, California and in the summer of 2013, began holding writers retreats in Palm Springs. She’s the former president of Sisters in Crime, Orange County chapter, and was the editor of The ASJA Monthly, (the official publication of the American Society of Journalists and Authors), from 2002 to 2014. ASJA awarded her with the Extraordinary Service Award in 2015.
She’s worked a variety of jobs: bookseller, semi-conductor inspector, Avon lady, housecleaner, auto parts runner, baker, waitress, restaurant manager, crisis intervention counselor, actor in voice over and in a CBS-special, copywriter, and publicist. In grade school she loved spelling bees (which she often won). She’s from Altoona, Pennsylvania, and now lives in Orange County, California.
From the Archives…
Dream Chasers and Eccentrics
Creator and host Paul Tremmell talks with Barbara about how she became a writer (instead of going to clown school or starting a beauty salon), writing short stories, her writing habits and techniques, writing in longhand, stationary sickness, her book Palm Springs Noir, lessons and insights gleaned from the hundreds of authors she’s interviewed on her podcast, the importance of improvisation, cultivating creativity, self-publishing vs. traditional publishing, book covers, AI, favorite books and authors, and more.
Corona Del Mar Life Magazine ran a profile called “Meet Barbara DeMarco-Barrett: Author, Podcast Host, and Associate Writing Professor,” by Nayan Petrime, Jr. in its August 2022 issue.
An article about Barbara, “Up Close with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett” in Coast Magazine, published by the Orange County Register, September 2018.
Support Indie bookshops and this site by purchasing books through my BookShop
