PUBLIC SAFETY WRITERS ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER
VOLUME VI WINTER
Editor: Marilyn Meredith, mmeredith@ocsnet.net
IN THIS ISSUE:
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
PSWA CONFERENCE
MEMBER ARTICLES AND TIPS
BOOK REVIEWS
MEMBER NEWS
TIM’S COMPUTER TIPS
MEMBER INTERVIEWS
Hope this New Year finds you all happy, rested and ready for a new year full of enthusiasm for your writing projects and participation in the Public Safety Writers Association. As you can see from our website, we have a wide variety of ways in which you can become involved.
By asking to be a participant in our list serve, you can interact with all other participating members. This last year, many of our members have received valuable information from fellow writers, as well as the opportunity to simply get to know one another a little better.
It’s still not too late to enter the writing competition. Competition chair Michelle Perin-Callahan reports that entries are coming in daily and we hope this will be the biggest year yet for our ever-popular competition. Check out the website for details on how you can enter.
Conference chair Marilyn Meredith has been working diligently for many months lining up a real all-star cast of speakers for the annual conference which will be held in Las Vegas April 25-28. As you can see from the details on the website, thanks to Keith Bettinger we have a new and better venue for the event. Be sure to make your reservations early to take advantage of the attractive rate Keith has negotiated for us at the hotel.
Many of you have also taken advantage of our manuscript review option. To refresh your memory, every member is entitled to a FREE one-time review of his/her manuscript, whether it be a short story, news story, technical piece or full-length novel. One of our experienced, published authors will read your work and provide both an overall review as well as a detailed list of suggestions on how you might make your work both better and more marketable. Learn more about the process here. If you’d like, we can also put you in touch with several of our members who have used this service to get their input on how helpful it was to them.
If you are considering submitting your work to public safety publications, we remind you that thanks again to the diligence of Keith Bettinger, PSWA can now make available to MEMBERS ONLY of by far the most comprehensive list anywhere of publications that accept work from freelance writers.
Thanks to the efforts of our officers and several other very active members, we are also pleased to announce that membership has greatly increased this year. WELCOME all you new members and WELCOME AGAIN to all of you who have renewed your membership.
Any organization is only as valuable to its members as their enthusiasm and willingness to participate in the activities of the group. Here’s to a successful writing year to all of you and growth and prosperity to PSWA.
--Marilyn Olsen, President
Late Breaking News: For you published authors, when making your traveling plans, consider staying over an extra day as Cheesecake and Crime, a new bookstore in Henderson, has offered to host a joint booksigning to be held Sunday afternoon from 3 to 5 p.m.
We’ll provide transportation for those who need it.
If you can’t stay, every author who comes to the conference can have his or her book on display for sale and we will have a booksigning on Friday afternoon after the scheduled programming.
The owner of Cheesecake and Crime, Pamela Mains, will also appear on our publishers panel.
Information about Las Vegas:
When you arrive in April, you will be treated to some of the most beautiful weather and scenery that Las Vegas has to offer. Please make sure you allow yourself enough days to enjoy all there is to offer in my sunny community.
Before you arrive let me give you a few pointers and also dispel some of the rumors about Las Vegas.
Yes it will be warm if you arrive in the daytime. However, we also have something called night. At night it is known to get cool. Locals call it chilly. I would suggest you bring a light jacket to wear in the evening. In this day and age, a windbreaker now passes for evening wear.
Our summer weather goes from May through the end of September. We have four seasons; Spring, Summer, Oh My God I’m melting, and ah there’s a chill in the air.
I have a nice home in suburbia. I do not live in the casino where the conference is being held. I do like to go to the casino every now and then to see what my money has done to improve the place.
I do not have a gambling problem, I have a winning problem.
Our hotel/casino is located at the intersection of Rampart and Alta in Las Vegas. You will still be in the city of Las Vegas but away from both the old and the new strips. However, our hotel runs shuttle buses down to the strip and you can either walk, take the tourist trolley or public transportation to see the many sights of the Las Vegas Strip that should not be missed.Some of them are;
- New York New York Hotel and Casino with their 9/11 memorial at the corner of Tropicana and Las Vegas Blvd.
- The Water Show at the Bellagio Hotel. The water fountains set to music are beautiful. At night the shows go every 15 minutes.
- See the pirate show outside of Treasure Island, now called TI if you’re young and hip.
- Mirage has the Volcanoes that go off on schedule nightly.
- Take a walk through the Venetian and see the gondolas being sailed through the canals of Venice.
- Broadway shows in town – Mama Mia at the Mandalay Bay, Phantom at the Venetian.
- A lot of the older hotels have on the old strip and even on the new strip have free or reasonably priced shows.
- Celine Dion is still performing at Caesars Palace. The tickets are very expensive but the show is fantastic. (Lynn and I have seen it twice.) Barry Manilow is at the Las Vegas Hilton (the hotel where Elvis’ ghost walks the hallways at night). He too is expensive.
- The Scintas are a performing family of singers and musicians. If you have watched the Jerry Lewis Telethon you have probably seen them. Another great local act is Ron Lucas the ventriloquist. Lynn bought tickets to it a few years ago for my birthday present. The day we went Ron had laryngitis. Since he was sick the puppets wouldn’t come out and perform.
- Also, don’t forget to take a walk into the MGM Grand and see the live lions. If you go to the Flamingo Hilton on the strip they have a beautiful area inside with what else – flamingos.
- Don’t forget to bring your bathing suits. The Suncoast Hotel has a beautiful pool. Bring your cameras as well. There is so much to see and you will want to remember this trip. The hotel is only a short distance away from Red Rock Canyon, which has a beautiful 13 mile scenic loop through the park. It is magnificent. Also we will be about one half hour away from Mt. Charleston. Mt. Charleston will take you from the desert floor up to eleven thousand feet and snow covered mountaintops. That’s another reason to bring that jacket along with you. You will also be less than one hour away from Hoover Dam. You can either take guided tours of the interior of the dam or just park in the garage and wander around like the rest of the tourists. When traveling to Hoover Dam you must stop and enjoy the scenery of Lake Mead. This man-made lake is part of the Hoover Dam and provides us with water, swimming, fishing, boating and majestic scenery.
Please sign up early for the conference. The sooner we know how many are coming, the sooner we can get the final preparations in order. I am looking forward to seeing ALL our members at the conference in April.
Regards,
Keith Bettinger
*ADDITION TO THE CONFERENCE PROGRAM
We’ve had an addition to the program for the conference. Victoria Heckman has agreed to appear with me (Marilyn) in “The How to Write a Mystery” presentation. Victoria is the author of the K.O.'d in Hawaii mystery series From Pemberley Press & Writer's Exchange and Kapu, A Coconut Man Mystery of Ancient Hawai'I, 2008 from Seven Sisters Publishing. Visit Victoria’s website at:
www.victoriaheckman.com
We have other surprises cooking—don’t miss out! –Marilyn Meredith, Program Chairperson
* * *
About Publishers
Your PSWA board has worked very hard to find editors/publishers interested in publishing your work. Finding these editors/publishers and expanding the list is a never-ending job. If you have editors/publishers that you would like to have included in our booklet please forward them to the PSWA board so they can be included. Your help is this matter is appreciated by every member of the PSWA. Thank you. Keith Bettinger
keithbett@cox.net
Author of: Fighting Crime With "Some" Day and Lenny, or What Happens When Car 54 Where Are You Meets Dragnet (Ed. Note: See the great review in this newsletter.)
New Publisher
A new publisher has just opened its doors, DALP Press: www.dalppress.com For now, they only accept fiction. It is primarily an e-publisher but will also be publishing trade paperback for the better selling e-books.
*PRICELESS PUBLICITY
by Sunny Frazier
Wouldn't it be nice if the writers in this group each had their own publicity agent? Publicity can cost money—but it doesn't have to.
Marilyn Meredith and I are both signed up on BookTour.com. This nifty website is the brainchild of three San Francisco authors who use technology to connect authors with audiences.
In 2006, they launched the idea to the world. Authors create a page with their bio, books, and tour dates. Venues looking for speakers list their sites on BookTour.
What happens next is simple: based on your zip code, you are automatically notified when an author is speaking in your area. My recent speaking engagement at the Kings County Library was on the site. When I notified friends and authors of this unique promotional opportunity, the response was enough to garner me the title of Author of the Day.
It doesn't end there. An author can enter zip codes and find groups open to speakers. I entered the zip codes for cities where I have friends willing to put me up for the night and found an abundance of groups to contact.
Looking for speakers for a group is always difficult. Why not try BookTour and let the speakers find out about the PSWA conference?
I've developed my own PR project. I call it “The Murder Circle.” I've made many friends in the mystery world and I like to find out what they're up to. Combining curiosity with my journalistic background (and a love of gossip), I write a weekly column and send it out to mystery lovers and mystery authors. It's more fun than blogging about myself. I never run out of material.
The column has been a huge hit with readers. Marilyn has been on The Murder Circle and will be mentioned again soon. Several others in this group are also going to find themselves chatted up. If you're interested in checking out the Circle, go to http://www.sunnyfrazier.com/MurderCircle/ Or, just google my name. It's on my website.
Contact me with your publishing news and let me play publicist.
Another way I'm getting free publicity is through a column I write for the local newspaper. I was asked to write a monthly column titled “Write On!” for the entertainment page. I went to two Christmas parties and it seems everyone in my small town has been reading the column. One woman clips it and sends it to friends 300 miles away.
You should never have to pay for publicity, not when there are free venues to reach readers, book buyers and the media.
*A Few Fiction Writing Tips
by Marilyn Meredith
At the request of someone who is publishing an anthology of short stories, I tried to fix one of the submissions. The following were the biggest problems in the story.
Lots of unnecessary information. No description of anyone except their sex–including not naming characters until far into the story. Confusing pronouns. No dialogue. Too much telling, not enough showing. Sentence structure always the same which caused many sentences to begin with the same word. Using the main character’s name when a “she” would have sufficed. Keeping events in the order they happen.
Those were the biggest problems–and they are problems that I see in far too many new author’s manuscripts. Having served as a judge for a large self-publishing fiction contest for many years, believe me, I’ve seen these same mistakes often.
Especially in a short story, don’t put in any information that doesn’t add to the plot or character development. Don’t repeat information you’ve already told us a few paragraphs earlier.
When a character is introduced that’s the time to give them a name and at least a line or two of description so the reader can “see” this person. If each character has a name, it’s a much easier way to identify him or her than saying the “young mother” or the “old man” over and over. Be careful not to give your characters names starting with the same letter, names that rhyme or sound too much alike.
Pronouns must refer back to the last person or thing mentioned. If not, then you must repeat the person’s name or the name of the object. You don’t ever want to confuse your readers.
Every short story or novel should have a balance of action, narrative and dialogue. Dialogue is important in fiction. Though dialogue needs to sound natural, don’t write the everyday hum-drum things we all say to each other.
Dialogue needs to move the plot along or reveal something about the characters.
Don’t have your characters give information to someone who already knows what they are telling. “Said “and “asked” are better dialogue tags in most cases, than words like “responded”, “agreed” etc. The common tags readers seldom notice, where the others seem to interrupt the flow of the story. Use the character’s action or some description as a dialogue tag instead.
Describe the most exciting scenes rather than telling what happened. When writing action, keep the sentences short. Longer sentences work well in romantic scenes.
Try to vary the length of your sentences and the sentence structure. Don’t always use the common structure of subject verb. In the story I referred to in the beginning, the majority of sentences began with the main character’s name or “she”.
If no one else has entered a scene, once you’ve named the main character, “he” or “she” is probably enough of an identification.
Make sure you’ve kept things moving in the right order. In other words, don’t say someone unlocked the car before they left the house. That doesn’t mean you have to write every single action someone did—just what you do relate, make sure it’s in the correct order.
Always edit your work before sending it out. That means print out what you’ve written and edit it that way. On the computer, you eye tends to read what you thought was there rather than what really is. Whether a story or novel gets accepted by a publisher often depends upon how well edited it is. Editing should be what takes the majority of your time. Not only do I edit what I’ve written, I pass it by my critique group, and then I send it out to a professional editor. When I send a manuscript to my publisher, I know my work is as good as I could make it. Of course, the publisher’s editor will likely find more –but I’ve done my part.
Marilyn Meredith is the author of the Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series and the Rocky Bluff P.D. series. http://fictionforyou.com
* * *
From Spotlight on Pahrump:
“Keith Bettinger has created a unique book. Although it’s only 95 pages long, it is packed with 25 of the most hilarious short stories ever written about cops and the dangers of police work. Each story follows two top cops through their daily routine in the most dangerous borough in all of New York City – Staten Island!
“Detective Sergeant Robert “Some” Day (don’t get caught calling him “Some” Day to his face) and his trusty sidekick Detective Lenny Birnbaum head up the Major Case Squad on The Island. They only get called out for the Really Big cases – like when someone has stolen all of the sprinkler heads at God’s Little Waiting Room Nursing Home. It’s a riot watching these two bumble their way through case after case and not have a clue as to how they managed to come out smelling like a rose.
“Imagine, if you can, Joe Friday as the inept Agent 86 in Get Smart! or Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther. Now, add to this the deadpan delivery of Jack Webb’s Sergeant Friday and you begin to feel the essence of Fighting Crime With “Some” Day and Lenny. Now, add to this mix, the experience of a real retired cop who knows how to write a good police report and you begin to get a feel for the inane situations our two intrepid heroes find themselves in: …someone swipes a birdbath…tracking a runaway groom to PAHRUMP!…solving the theft of a plastic pink flamingo…locking the keys to the police cruiser in the car...and twenty other misadventures!
“Of course, the best part of this book is that you don’t even have to be a cop to identify some of the characters in the stories. Everyone has worked with one or two individuals that are as clueless as Day and Birnbaum. Everyone has watched these co-workers work at getting out of work. Everyone has got caught with their hand in the cookie jar once or twice.
“Fighting Crime With “Some” Day And Lenny Or What Happens When Dragnet Meets Car 54 Where Are You? is available in both paperback and as an ebook online at: www.iuniverse.com/bookstore The price is $10.95 and $6.00 respectively.
One final note: Fighting Crime With “Some” Day And Lenny Or What Happens When Dragnet Meets Car 54 Where AreYou? is the perfect addition to any bathroom library. It will keep people entertained while they do their business and people on the other side of the door will be wondering what the hell is so funny.”
* * *
The founder of this organization, Roger Fulton, has three new books published:
For Criminal Justice Professionals - A career guidebook at: http://www.rogerfulton.com/books.htm
For New York – A historical sites book for the Lake George Area at: http://www.rogerfulton.com/ecotours/NYBooks/LakeGeorgeHistory.htm
For Florida - A biking book for NE Florida at: http://www.rogerfulton.com/ecotours/FLBooks/FL-NEBikeTrails.htm
Robert Knight’s story originally in 'Manhattan Noir' anthology was picked for Best American Mystery Stories 2007; and 'Queens Noir', Robert is the editor will be in the stores in December.
PSWA Member, Martin Gonzalez also has a new book out: Werewolves Among Us.
He says the story is relatively simple-boy meets girl, loses girl tragically. Meets another girl but she’s a werewolf.
Mike, the protagonist of the story, is a NYC cop. During a routine car stop his partner/fiancée, Lisa is killed. Mike nearly commits suicide from his loss. Following the advice of his friend, his fiancée's brother, he decides to visit his sister, Angela, in upstate NY, Sullivan County, for some peace and quiet.
But every cop knows there's no rest for the weary, especially a cop. His best friend, Marty, a Sullivan Co. sheriff's deputy, and former partner on the NYPD. He is married to Marty’s sister Angela and is investigating a series of mysterious killings.
Mike becomes involved in the investigation and meets mysterious young women in the process. What happens next is what Mike never expected - love, and the mayhem he was trying to escape in NYC. For more information, visit, http://www.werewolvesamongus.com
Member Phil Bulone had the honor of having a short story published in True Blue, Real Police Stories by Those Who Lived Them, St. Martin's Press. The book was used as a fundraiser for the widows and orphans of police officers killed on 911. The book did very well. As a follow-up, the publisher is printing True Blue, Part II, and another one of his stories will be in it. This project will be used as a fundraiser for the dedication of the Police Memorial being dedicated in Washington next May. Although the authors were paid a small one-time fee by the publisher for the stories in the book, the publicity of the authors generated a fair amount of sales of Bulone’s book, Gray Shades of Blue. He recently completed a novel, Joey Rags, and will coincide it's publication with True Blue II.
Marilyn Meredith’s latest Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery, Judgment Fire, is a finalist for an Eppie in the mystery section. The winners will be announced in March. The fourth in her Rocky Bluff P.D. series, Smell of Death, is making its debut in January. To read the first chapter of this or any of her books, visit her website at: http://fictionforyou.com* * *
TIM’S COMPUTER TIPS
Take Your Writing With You
by Tim Dees
It would be nice if we could have the freedom to write when, where, and about things as we pleased, but that's not the case for most of us. Unless you're retired, one of the people that writes full-time for a living, or have some exterior means of support, you are probably saddled with one of the most tenacious obstacles to writing: a job. Employers often take a dim view of their workers using company time and/or facilities to pursue their avocations at the cost of productivity, and rightfully so. And while I would never encourage someone to deceive their employer covertly (wink wink, nudge nudge), there is a way you can work on your writing and other personal computing activities, and leave less telltale evidence on the computer you're using.
These strategies all involve the use of flash drives, also called thumb drives and USB drives. These are solid-state memory devices, usually smaller than a pack of gum, which plug into a computer's USB port. Most computers these days have one or more rectangular USB ports on their front panel (and they all have ports on the back panel) for convenience. Once you plug your flash drive into a USB port, the computer "sees" that as another disk drive and interacts with it accordingly.
Flash drives have capacities up to 8 GB, although the higher-capacity drives are still fairly expensive. 4 GB drives can be had for around $25, and the lower-capacity drives (512 MB, 1 GB) have become so inexpensive that some vendors are distributing their software on them, rather than on CDs or DVDs. Of course, once you've used or decided you don't want the software, you can delete it and use the flash drive for whatever you please.
There is software available that allows you to download, read, and respond to e-mail, create and edit documents, and perform other tasks without leaving a trace on the host computer. Most of this works under a kind of mini-operating system called u3. u3 has to be installed on a flash drive by the manufacturer--you can't put it on a non-u3 flash drive. If you want to use this, make sure that the flash drive you buy carries the u3 logo.
When you insert a u3 drive, the u3 software loads automatically and places an icon on your desktop. Clicking the icon opens the u3 "launchpad," which displays the applications loaded on the drive. Several of the applications available access an encrypted portion of the drive that can give you access to your e-mail and documents and not leave any temp files or other breadcrumbs on the host computer.
You create this secured area on your personal "base" computer, and set up which e-mail accounts and folders, documents, and other files you want to carry with you. You are limited only by the capacity of the flash drive. You then synchronize those files between your own computer and the flash drive. When using a "foreign" computer (and this can be a work computer or one in an Internet Café, at a friend's home, or on a laptop--it doesn't matter), you open the secured area with a password you create, and a "virtual computer" opens. The virtual computer has the same desktop as the base computer, and contains the files you synced earlier. Assuming the host computer has the necessary application software (Outlook, Word, Excel, whatever), you can download new e-mail, read, edit and send messages, and work with the files stored on the flash drive. When you close the secured area and remove the flash drive, everything you worked on stays on the flash drive. When you get home, you synchronize the files again so that the versions on the base computer and the flash drive are the same (you'll need to do this again before you leave if you use the files while at home), and you pick up where you left off.
There are several applications to choose from: Reach-a-Mail, Carry It Easy, Dmailer, and my personal favorite, Migo. The most expensive of these applications is $40, and all have free or trial versions you can try. You can see the catalog of u3 applications at www.u3.com.
There are applications that will work without the u3 system, but they have inconsistent interfaces. In the end, the one that is best for you will be the one that you find easiest to use.
Don't buy a flash drive from those advertised on the u3 site. Those are generally overpriced. Discount web vendors like Buy.com are usually a better choice. I haven't found that one brand works better than another, but one feature I recommend is a loss-proof cover, where whatever mechanism that protects the USB male plug is permanently attached to the drive. The little pull-off covers are too easy to lose.
One more tip, especially if you have health problems: flash drives are excellent ways to carry your medical records around with you. Even a low-capacity flash drive is probably sufficient to carry PDF versions of recent lab tests, EKGs, medication lists, living will documents, and other information that you would want a physician unfamiliar with your medical history to have if they were treating you in an emergency. These drives are small enough to wear around your neck (and most have a lanyard hole for that purpose) or on your keychain, so you can take them with you when you travel. They will go through airport x-ray machines with no harm to the data. Use a scanner to create PDFs (a more or less universal document format) of your relevant records, and label the drive with a red cross or some other symbol alerting medical personnel to its contents.* * *
Roger Fulton
Q. Tell us something about yourself--where you live etc. Personal stuff that you're willing to share.
Last year I moved to Glens Falls, New York. No skyscrapers here! I’m about 200 miles north of New York City. We have more in common with Canada than we do NYC. Mostly cold weather.
Q. Tell us about your law enforcement career.
Wow! Seems like so long ago. I’ve been retired from the New York State Police for quite a while. (For those of you still active, those retirement checks spend very well.) I started out as a trooper on the Canadian Border. Chased fugitives from justice, burglars and the like. While with the state police I moved up the ranks and held several management positions along the way. They sent me to get my Masters Degree in CJ, sent me to the FBI’s National Academy (139th session), and treated me very well. I retired as a captain and the Assistant Director of Training for that 4000 person agency.
Q. When did you get interested in writing?
I NEVER was interested in writing! Hated it in school. But then I had to write police reports for a living. Well, that’s the same thing your 5th grade teacher taught you. What you did on your Summer vacation is about the same as what you write about a crime. Who?, What?, Where, When and How. So when I retired the editor of Law Enforcement Technology Magazine asked if I would write some articles for her.
I said, “Sure.”
“Do you know how?” she asked.
“How tough can it be?, I asked. “I’ve been reading magazine articles all my life and writing police reports for years.”
And that spawned a series of features and finally my management column that lasted 12 years.
Q. What gave you the idea to start what was then called The Police Writer Club?
Well that was kind of a “no brainer.” I was out there writing articles and columns, not knowing if I was getting paid enough. I had no references. I thought others might be wondering how to get published and we might compare notes on editors and payments. I was publishing a newsletter at the time for my law enforcement book and video business and asked if anyone was interested. I thought maybe half a dozen writers would respond. When I retired again and turned over my business, we had 165 police writers in the Club, and great parties at the annual conferences. We learned a great deal from each other as well.
Q. Tell us about the first writer's conference you organized
We lost money! But we put on a quality program. Great classes, taught by excellent law enforcement related professionals. Word spread and all of our conferences were very successful in their early years, whether they made or lost money was not the issue.
Q. What kind of writing are you doing now?
Well, my latest criminal justice book came out in August of 2007. It is a Career Guide for Criminal Justice Professionals. It’s how to take charge of your own career. It was published by Loosleaf Law. I guess I’m the number 2 author on that one. My long time co-author and editor, Mike Carpenter, took the lead on that one. So his name is listed first, just like on a theater marquee. But people can get it through MY webpage at www.RogerFulton.com or through the publisher. All of my CJ and management books are listed on that same webpage.
Q. Will we see you at PSWAs writing conference in 2008?
At this point, I honestly don’t know. I’m not presenting any programs so I would only go to see my old friends and maybe learn a thing or two about the current state of writing and publishing in the criminal justice community. So, I’m just undecided at this point. Sounds like it might be a good time, so you never know when the president emeritus might show up.
Q. Is there anything else you'd like to tell us?
Yes! There IS life after a law enforcement career IF you plan for it. You’ll have great knowledge and experience to draw on for your writing, whether it is fiction or non-fiction. Often over the years retired cops have approached me and said they had stories to tell. Could I find them a ghost writer, publisher, agent, etc.?
I have always told them that writing is like trying to become a police officer. We wouldn’t think about putting out a police officer who had not been through a formal academy, and then spent time with an experienced officer. So why does anyone think they can step right into the writing and publishing industries with no training or experience?
The PSWA can train them, get them started and provide a network of people who have “been there” to guide them. It can start at your annual conference.
Best wishes to all, and maybe we’ll actually meet some of you in April if the Las Vegas stars align themselves just right.
Roger Fulton
President Emeritus, and
PSWA’s founder
Michael Berish
I was born and raised in Poughkeepsie, New York (about 75 miles north of N.Y.C. on the Hudson River), graduated from the University of Pittsburgh on an academic scholarship with a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology and received my Master of Arts degree in Communications from Barry University (in Miami) where I took courses in Production, Directing, Screenplay Writing.
I'm single and live with my two dogs: Dewey and Huckleberry Finn in a beach home, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, on one of the barrier islands off the coast of Florida where I enjoy playing golf, tennis, and writing.
I worked as a patrolman, a detective and as a supervisor with the City of Miami Police Department for twenty-two years (1972-1994), thirteen of which were spent as an undercover detective in the REAL Miami Vice where I worked everything from Narcotics & Vice, Prostitution, Gambling and Pornography, to Dignitary Protection of President Jose Napoleon Duarte (of El Salvador) and Pope John Paul II.
I’m a 1st Amendment Expert, and became an expert in the field of prosecuting Pornography while in the Vice Squad and made over 1,000 cases, mostly against organized crime syndicates, and never lost one case. I testified in front of the Meese Commission on Obscenity during the Reagan Administration and was subpoenaed by the F.B.I. to testify for them as an expert witness in New Orleans reference an Interstate Transportation case. I lectured in front of numerous civic groups, taught week-long seminars to fellow law enforcement agencies, and helped train new Assistant State Attorneys on how to properly conduct Obscenity investigations.
Reflections from the Pit's (my new book) approach to storytelling is unique in that all of these stories contain individual, quirky, off-center characters and focus on their basic character flaws while dealing with the social issues of the day. They are meant to be snapshots into the dark side of police work and deal with segregation, racism, sexism, prejudice, teenage prostitution, police brutality and its senseless violence, crazies who think they have been abducted by aliens, the murdering of transvestites, the lack of compassion and sympathy by the younger generation for their elders, the injustice and ineptitude of the legal system, the stupidity of criminals and the cowardice of police officers in the face of danger (the latter is rarely seen on TV), hangings from police cruisers, affirmative action, Cuban freedom fighters a.k.a. terrorists, the callousness of society towards the homeless, drug-dealing cops and corruption, bungled police stings, the “don’t get involved” syndrome and the raping of the elderly.
"REFLECTIONS FROM THE PIT" can be ordered from several book stores and publishers. Below are a list of only a few of them:
1) Click the tab labeled To Order Books on my website. You will see an order form from www.iuniverse.com. You can order your book(s) [hardcover or paperback] from them.
They (www.iuniverse.com) can also be reached at: 1-800-288-4677, EXT. # 501 or by e-mail at BOOK.ORDERS@IUNIVERSE.COM
OR:
2) Go to the To Order Books tab on this website, then to the sub-titled tab or page which is entitled: IUNIVERSE BOOK REVIEW AND ORDERING SITE and books (hardcover or paperback) can also be ordered from there.
OR:
3) You can order through: www.booksamillion.com
4) You can order through: www.amazon.com
5) You can order through: www.barnesandnoble.com or www.bn.com
6) You can order through: www.bordersstores.com
Several of the police stories in REFLECTIONS FROM THE PIT have been published or accepted for publication in numerous national publications along with magazines on the internet (Hardboiled Magazine, Enigma [five articles], Rembrandt and Company [The Goblin Reader], Low Budget Adventure Stories, The Rose & Thorn E-zine Magazine, Cynic Magazine [three articles: one of which was republished in the January, 2007 issue as one of Cynic Magazine’s Best Stories of 2006], Poetry Forum Short Stories [two articles], The Oak, etc.).
Writing Awards:
I was one of the 2006 PSWA (Public Safety Writers Association) WRITING CONFERENCE WINNERS. I won First Prize in Fiction (Short Story) for "Just Back from the Constellation Orion Nebula" and Third Prize for Non-Fiction (Short Story) for "A Quart of Milk and a Loaf of Bread."
My short story entitled: “Everyone Comes to Vic’s” was first published in Cynic Magazine in June, 2006 (Volume 8, Issue 6). It was republished in January, 2007 issue as one of Cynic Magazine’s Best Stories of 2006 (only 15 of 143 features were selected that year for Best Stories).
"Everyone Comes to Vic's" and "Just Back from the Constellation Orion Nebula" are both featured in their entirety on the HOME page and also in REFLECTIONS FROM THE PIT.
To learn more about Michael and his book, visit: www.realmiamivice.com
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(Anyone who would like to be interviewed for the newsletter, just contact the editor at mmeredith@ocsnet.net)
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