Public Safety Writers Association Conference

This is the last day for the Early Bird Fee for the PSWA Conference--$200 for three days of great speaker, panels, wonderful lunches, and the awards ceremony. You can pay by Pay Pal or check (send the check right now with your registration form and you will be counted as early bird.)

For more information go to http://policewriter.com/ 

ACT NOW!

CONFERENCE SPEAKERS

Want to include the FBI in your novel? Do it right, using the proper context, and understanding how the Bureau operates. John Wills and Herm Groman will discuss FBI practices and terminology in their presentation: FBI Fact and Fiction.

JOHN M. WILLS.  John writes both fiction and non-fiction.  He has had more than one hundred articles published in various law enforcement magazines and websites, relating to police training, fitness, officer survival, and ethics.  He is a monthly contributor to Officer.com, the largest web portal for law enforcement, and is a former Chicago police officer and retired FBI agent.  His latest novel, Targeted, will be released in the Spring of 2011.  It is the third book in an exciting series John created, called The Chicago Warriors Thriller Series.  He also an award-winning author of short stories, many of which have been published in anthologies such as Randy Sutton’s,  True Blue to Protect and Serve (St. Martin’s Press), and Stories of Faith and Courage From Cops On The Street, part of the AMG Battlefields & Blessings series .  He is an authorized NCAA speaker on the topic of steroids and dangerous drugs
Herman Groman is a retired FBI Special Agent and is the current director of security at large Las Vegas casino/hotel.  While in the FBI, he specialized in working deep long-term undercover operations as an undercover agent in the areas of organized crime and narcotics.  He also served as the agent in charge of several high-profile public official corruption investigations.  Later on in his FBI career, he was a team leader of one of the FBI Special Operations Groups.  The specialized group conducted surveillances of major terrorist cell groups and their associates.  He served in the infantry in Vietnam and was awarded the purple-heart and bronze star for valor.  He resides in Las Vegas with his wife.  They have two adult daughters and four grandchildren.

A SHORT AND LIVELY HISTORY OF MONEY LAUNDERING
JOHN MADINGER explores the history and operation of an activity that Business Week called, "the crime of the 21st century."  The art and science of making dirty money appear clean goes back a long way, and has become a key part of almost any crime committed for financial gain.  The program will look at the first recorded money laundering scheme (it's in the Bible), a money laundering scam that brought down a president, the techniques that terrorists use to finance their operations, and the evolution of modern money laundering, from Al Capone to Bernie Madoff.  Money laundering may be the third largest business in the world, and it is certainly a key part of every organized criminal activity on the planet.  We'll look at how law enforcement attacks the problem and what the criminals do to avoid getting caught (and losing their money), and will gain a clear understanding of how and why money is laundered today.  
JOHN MADINGER recently retired as a senior special agent with the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service. In his 36-year law enforcement career, he also served as narcotics agent, supervisor, and administrator. He holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Indiana University, a master’s degree in history from the University of Hawaii, and was the honor graduate in the Treasury Criminal Investigation Training Program. He was the recipient of numerous awards and citations from the Internal Revenue Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration and Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces. Throughout his career, he had extensive experience in money laundering, forfeiture, and financial investigations; has developed training programs in these areas for the Treasury and Justice Departments; and has developed and presented money laundering training in the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. 
John is the author of Money Laundering: A Guide for Criminal Investigators, 3rd Edition, 2011, and Confidential Informant: Law Enforcement’s Most Valuable Tool, both published by Taylor and Francis/CRC Press, as well as Death on Diamond Head, a mystery set in Honolulu, Hawaii and published by Watermark Publishing.  He is an active member of Mystery Writers of America and the Public Safety Writers Association.

THEY AIN’T ALL NAMED BUNDY, DAHMER OR GACEY

KATHY COTTRELL,  forensic nurse examiner and victim advocate, shares her years of experience working in the trenches with sexual assault victims, dispelling the myths and misconceptions about sex offenders so that authors don't fall into the traps presented by print and electronic media.
KATHY COTTRELL R.N.  has a varied clinical background from the Operating Room, Labor and Delivery and clinical instruction to nursing administration, investigating allegations of medical malpractice and, most recently, a legal nurse consultant on personal injury and negligence cases. 
For twelve years she was affiliated with the Regional Rape Crisis Service of Rochester, New York, first as a volunteer advocate, then worked her way up the ladder to staff coordinator and eventually director of the four county crisis intervention program which served an average of 1,000 victims of sexual violence and their significant others. Her most recent role with RCS was as a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, or SANE.
           
A published author in her own right, Kathy uses her experience in her books and also in professional workshops with the goal of helping authors to incorporate authenticity into their writing. Particularly, she speaks to the impact of sexual violence on victims, the community and advocates.

  

TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE

JOHN BRAY will share a few stories of cops who crossed the line and ended up in the Administrative Trial Room. The tale of the cop who shot his lover’s unarmed husband, the theft of 100 lbs. of heroin from the locker room, to the Medal of Honor winner who extorted money from “Sonny Red” Gambino.
JOHN BRAY retired as lieutenant after 17 years on the New York City Police Department. After acquiring a BS and Juris Doctor Degree he was admitted to the bar and worked for four years as lieutenant prosecutor in the Department’s internal disciplinary system. After leaving the NYPD, he practiced criminal law for 30 years. Currently he’s the President of the Chesapeake Bay Writers Club and the author of two novels, The Ballad of Johnny Madigan and The Confidential.


ARE YOU GETTING THE MOST OUT OF WORD?
If your favorite writing tools are a legal pad and a fountain pen, this session is not for you. Most of us use word processors like Microsoft Word to get our ideas into print. Tim Dees will discuss techniques within Word that can streamline your workflow and allow you more time for creating and composing. We’ll talk about use of styles, macros, annotations, footnotes and endnotes. Effective use of the tools within Word allow you to produce a publication-ready manuscript, complete with an automatically-generated table of contents, index, and list of references. We’ll also look at an inexpensive writer’s software application called Scrivener. Scrivener has provisions for tracking the characteristics or each person and place in your book, so you don’t confuse details that detract from your story. It even generates character names of user-selectable ethnicity and period.
All those in attendance will receive a CD with narrated tutorial “movies” taking you through each technique, and a trial copy of Scrivener.
Tim Dees has been writing, training and consulting on applications of technology for over 20 years. He spent 15 years as a law enforcement officer in Reno and the Pyramid Lake Paiute Indian Reservation in Nevada before teaching criminal justice at colleges in Nevada, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Georgia and Oregon. Tim has also been the editor-in-chief of Officer.com and LawOfficer.com. He serves on the PSWA board as the resident Alpha Geek. He holds a bachelor’s degree in biological science from San José State University and a master’s in criminal justice from The University of Alabama.

WORKING THE “L” CAR…SELF-PUBLISHING – ONE WRITER’S STORY

The publishing scene has changed.  There are many avenues an author can pursue to get their work in the hands of readers.  One of those is paths is self-publishing. In the first few months of 2011, KATHY BENNETT decided to self-publish her full-length novel, A Dozen Deadly Roses.  In June of 2011 the book was available as an e-book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords making the book available to anyone with an e-reader, computer, tablet, or Smartphone. In October of 2011, A Dozen Deadly Roses was the #1 Police Procedural book at Amazon, and the #10 Suspense book, in the Top 20 of the Mystery/Thriller category, and in the Top 50 of all books being sold at Amazon.  The book also made the Top 100 of all Nookbooks sold at Barnes and Noble.  Over 40,000 copies had been sold. 
In this presentation Kathy will share with you her experience:  the good, bad, and the ugly in self-publishing her debut novel.  She’ll also discuss how her experience changed in publishing her second book, A Deadly Blessing (which she anticipates being available in early 2012).
KATHY BENNETT retired after twenty-one years as a Los Angeles police officer. Most of her career was working patrol in a black-and-white police car. She also served as a Senior Lead Officer, a Firearms Instructor at the LAPD Police Academy, a crime analyst in the “War Room”, a Field Training Officer, and worked undercover in carious assignments. She was named Officer of the Quarter twice and Officer of the Year once.


THE TRUTH ABOUT PROFILING
Peter Klismet BS, MS, MPA, FBI (Retired) will discuss what the concept of criminal profiling involves, debunk some myths, identify some behavioral clues profilers are trained to seek, explain how going from the 'how' and 'what' differs from looking for the 'why,' at a crime scene, and review the differences between 'method of operation' and 'signature.'
After a 30 year law enforcement career, which included over 9 years with the Ventura (CA) Police Department and over 20 years in the FBI, Pete retired in 1999, the same year he received the National Law Enforcement Officer of the Year award at an International Convention in San Francisco. Pete's FBI offices included Los Angeles; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Omaha, NE and finally Grand Junction, CO. He was selected as one of the original profilers in 1985 and in addition to considerable FBI training, trained and worked with law enforcement agencies on numerous homicide cases in the Midwest, in addition to his other duties. Pete is a graduate of Metropolitan St. College in Denver, received a Master's Degree from California Lutheran University and a second Master's from the Univ. of Southern California. He is currently an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at a Colorado community college.


 PSWA