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Conference 2011

PSWA’s (Public Safety Writers Association) annual conference will be held in Las Vegas, July 14-17, 2011 at the Orleans Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas. 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.

The Orleans Hotel and Casino:

  • 30 guest rooms blocked on either side of our conference dates for attendees wishing to make this a working vacation.
  • 50 guest rooms blocked for conference dates.
  • Conference Rates:
  • Guest rooms $43 weekdays/$90 weekends (Friday and Saturday) If advertised prices go below conference rates they will match.
  • Shuttle service to strip and Suncoast and Gold Coast casinos.
  • No airport shuttle, but taxi from airport to Orleans straight up Tropicana is about $10-$12
  • Shuttle services (small buses, multiple companies) from airport Approx. $7.50 - $10.00
  • Can walk to new strip from hotel if energetic. Don't recommend because of heat and riff-raff begging on streets along the way.
  • Buffet, restaurants, coffee shop, Seattle's best, bowling alley bingo hall, movie theaters etc.
  • For more information visit http://www.orleanscasino.com/

 

Presentations Scheduled


USING FORENSIC EVIDENCE IN STORY LINES
Presenter: Tom Edmonds, Chief Deputy Coroner

Edmonds currently serves as the Chief Deputy Coroner and Public Administrator for the Kings County Sheriff's Office in California.  He began his thirty year law enforcement career as a patrol officer, and served as both training officer and watch commander in that capacity.  Later, he supervised the detective division, having come up through that unit as a property crimes investigator, sex crimes investigator, and in homicide/violent crimes.  He is the team leader for his agency's hostage negotiation unit, and in his spare time administratively coordinates his department's Youth Explorer program.

 

“IT’S NOT A BOOK, IT’S A MOVIE!”
Presenter: Christopher Scott Wyatt

This presentation focuses on how to adapt an existing story for film or television. Writing a screenplay forces a writer to forsake one of our favorite tools: descriptive prose. Film is a collaborative medium, and the director is in charge. As a writer, you offer the director a starting point for the process. A typical 120-page script is fewer than 15,000 words, requiring an economy unique to screenwriting. Most published writers fail to realize how much has to be omitted: not only minor characters, but entire scenes are excised for length.

C. S. Wyatt is a freelance editor and "consultant" (a.k.a. ghostwriter). He is a member of the Dramatist Guild of America, having worked on nearly three dozen scripts. A true "word doctor," Christopher has a Ph.D from the Department of Writing Studies at the University of Minnesota. His primary interest is the young-adult book and film markets, backed by a conviction that coarse language and violence aren't necessary to tell a great story. 

http://www.tameri.com


SUBTEXT THROUGH DIALOGUE AND ACTION—SHOWING NOT TELLING
Presenter: Holli Castillo

Subtext can be a powerful tool to make a story or novel more interesting. Subtext is also one of those mysterious methods writers can use to achieve the result of the often repeated, "show don’t tell." There are two primary ways to use subtext– through dialogue and through action. Dialogue can be broken into two components- the surface level or actual words being said, and the subtext or what the speaker actually means. Action is an equally effective way to create subtext, and sometimes a single action can be more expressive and take the place of an entire paragraph of explanation. We’ll explore specific ways to create subtext in both dialogue and action, and draft examples using these methods.

Holli Castillo is a Louisiana appellate public defender and a former New Orleans prosecutor. Her first novel, Gumbo Justice, was published by Oak Tree Press in June, 2009.  The second in the Crescent City Mystery Series, Jambalaya Justice, is scheduled for release early fall.  Holli resides in the metropolitan New Orleans area with her husband, two daughters, dog, and deaf cat.

 

Click here to register for the 2011 PSWA Conference Online

Click here for a printable Conference Registration form
           

Click here for pictures from the 2010 PSWA Conference