PSWA’s (Public Safety Writers Association) annual conference is being held in Las Vegas, June 18-21, 2009 at the Suncoast Hotel and Casino. The conference is open to anyone writing crime and mystery fiction or non-fiction, technical writing for public safety magazines in print or online, or anyone interested in writing. Registered attendees may offer a suggestion for a presentation or panel. There is no-restriction as to who can serve on a panel.

Steve Scarborough, a Forensic Scientist with over 30 years experience in Law Enforcement with Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and the FBI.an accomplished technical writer and the author of several books, will give a presentation on “Writing Forensics Right.” http://www.steve-scarborough.com/

Tim Dees, Editor-in-Chief of LawOfficer.com, after serving in law enforcement, he was the first editor-in-chief at Officer.com before joining Elsevier Public Safety and LawOfficer.com in January 2008. His work has been published in nearly every major law enforcement magazine. His topic for the conference will be: Writing for the New Media.

Fire Fighting and Arson, Presenter: Dave Doust


What Makes Your Characters (and you) Tick – how handwriting reveals motivations

Sheila Lowe is a court-qualified forensic handwriting expert. She has a degree in psychology and provides expert testimony in forensic cases, as well as behavioral profiling through handwriting analysis. Her writing career covers a wide range, from the best-selling non-fiction books, Handwriting of the Famous & Infamous, and Complete Idiot’s Guide to Handwriting Analysis, to articles for legal and other magazines. She writes the Forensic Handwriting Mystery series (Penguin’s Obsidian Mysteries), featuring handwriting expert, Claudia Rose.

www.sheilalowe.com
www.claudiaroseseries.com - Poison Pen, an award-winning mystery featuring a handwriting expert.


We’re delighted to announce the addition of Betty Webb as our keynote speaker at Saturday’s lunch. Betty is the author of the prize winning and much acclaimed, hard-boiled Lena Jones books, which are based on stories she covered as a reporter, include Desert Noir, Desert Wives, Desert Shadows, Desert Run and Desert Cut. Her much softer Gunn Zoo series will debut in December with The Anteater of Death. Currently a creative writing teacher at Phoenix College, Betty is a member of National Federation of Press Women, Mystery Writers of America, and the Society of Southwest Authors. Her topic is: "From Hard-boiled to Darn Near Cozy, and Why I Dunnit." http://www.bettywebb.com

and

Victoria Heckman, Friday’s Keynote luncheon speaker will talk about "The Journey Is Everything" or "Where The Hell's The AAA When You Need It?" about the journey to becoming a writer and how it parallels our own life journeys.

Victoria Heckman is the author of the K.O.'d in Hawaii mystery series trom Pemberley Press
& Writer's Exchange. Kapu, A Coconut Man Mystery of Ancient Hawai'i, 2008 from Seven Sisters Publishing http://www.victoriaheckman.com

Logistics of Writing: How to gear up and rev up you writing productivity. A system to layer on top of your present way of writing. A practical series of step that will show you how to switch into a proactive approach of generating work.

Presenter: Sarah Cortez

The poetry of Sarah Cortez (“How to Undress A Cop”, Arte Público, 2000) brings the world of street policing to the reader in a way that poet-reviewer Ed Hirsch describes as “nervy, quick-hitting, street-smart, sexual”. Winner of the 1999 PEN Texas Literary award in poetry and other juried designations, Ms. Cortez is much in demand as a creative writing teacher. One of her poems was chosen for the nationwide Poetry in Motion program and many others have been anthologized. One of her poems was designated as an “Honorable Mention” in the 2007 Texas Poetry Calendar (Dos Gatos Press, Austin) by noted poet Kathleen Peirce. Ms. Corte

My website is http://fictionforyou.com

There are so many other things I need to be doing besides writing my blog. But I did want everyone to know that I have a holiday gift idea. For anyone who purchases one of my books from my website, I'll give them a free copy of Deadly Omen (the first in the Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series) and pay the postage. Just visit my website and tell me where you saw this.

Happy Holidays