Marilyn's Musings

by Kurt Kamm Last week I was at a UCLA function and was talking to a woman who was unhappy because she was trapped in her car for three hours in a Los Angeles Canyon while the LACoFD battled a brush fire. Her comment was, "If the fire department didn't have so many toys to bring out, I could have gotten out sooner." Thank goodness for the "toys." The policy in SoCal, home of some of the world's most destructive wildfires, is hit it fast and hard, with everyt resource available. Last year, an ineffective response led to a 7 week, 165,000 acre fire outside of the city of Los Angeles, which took the life of 2 firefighters. I live in Malibu, on a hillside overlooking the water. The day after the conversation at UCLA, I received a notification of a brush fire 8 miles away. Less than 5 minutes later, I heard a familiar roar and went out onto my deck. I watched Quebec 1 and Quebec 2, the SuperScoopers fly low over my house to pick up water in the ocean to drop on t...

I wanted to share this photo from the conference because I love it. Keith Bettinger, retired cop, is receiving one of his prizes from Michelle Perin-Callahan, contest chair. Keith also took care of securing the hotel and solving all the problems that came up--and yes, they do happen in the best planned conferences. Keith has a wonderful sense of humor and keeps everyone in stitches with his cop stories. He's written a full-length book and lots of short stories. Michelle is a police dispatcher, writes for several law enforcement magazines, is a mom of two, and a newlywed, besides being in charge of the PSWA writing contest. She's a great gal and lots of fun to be around. To show how supportive she is, she drove authors to Henderson to a bookstore for a group signing after the conference even though she didn't have a book to sell. This is a great group. I could go on and on about them. If you write mysteries with characters in law enforcement or fire fighting or other public ...