From the Top
President’s Report
As I write this, it’s snowing outside. That’s not abnormal for Spokane at this time of year. But there went my hope of going an entire winter without breaking out my snow shovel. Unfortunately, today was the tipping point. I’ve already removed heavy snow twice from my driveway and back patio.
When I came inside to write this, I had one thing on my mind: Las Vegas! I can’t wait for the next PSWA conference (July 17-20, 2025). It’ll be hot and sunny that weekend and my memories of shoveling will be in the rearview mirror.
Thanks to Mike Black, we again have an impressive lineup of speakers. They’ll cover a wide range of law enforcement, writing, and publishing topics, which Mike describes in detail in his report below. I can’t wait!
If you haven’t attended the pre-conference workshop before, why not do so this year? I joined last year’s workshop and had a blast. I’m looking forward to doing it again. A big thank you to Kelli Peacock and Frank Scalise for organizing this year’s workshop. Barbara Hodges is already receiving entries for the PSWA writing contest. Announcement of our winners is always a conference highlight. Have you sent your entries in? Don’t forget the new “PSWA 100” short (very short!) story category too.
We’re lucky to have a strong team of board members, who keep the organization—and the conference—going. In addition to Mike, Kelli, Frank, and Barbara, they are Steve Ditmars, Peg Roche, Vicki Weisfeld, and Tim Dees.
The Roaring Twentieth promises to be another great time. I hope to see you there!
Colin Conway
President
Vice President’s Report
Greetings, PSWA Members!
Thank you for making this organization exceptional. I witness members supporting one another every day, through our vibrant and informative listserv. Each of you holds unique knowledge that benefits the group as a whole, as well as our individual members. Your insights can inspire someone’s next book, and they help our readers understand what public safety professionals do, how we do it, and, most important, why.
Thank you for your prompt renewals this year. This success wouldn’t have been possible without the diligence of Kelli Peacock and Tim Dees. Kelli manages the payments, while Tim handles the IT work to ensure that your dues information is current and correct. Thank you all!
Last year, your management team focused on ways to provide more value to members. As a new offering, we kicked off a webinar series with a program hosted by yours truly. Although we had some technical glitches during that session, our president, Colin Conway, excelled in February with a presentation on Independent Authors. It was a fantastic opportunity for members who have considered moving away from traditional publishing and was in direct response to members’ enthusiasm for this topic. At our 2024 conference, Colin hosted a mixer on self-publishing, and the excellent attendance at that event showed it’s a topic our members want to learn more about. He may repeat the mixer again this year. If you missed his excellent webinar, you should be able to access the recording on the Zoom website through this link with the password [email protected].
Our next webinar, March 29, 2025, will feature member Ellen Kirschman discussing what writers need to know about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the public safety professions. Sign up here; you won’t want to miss it! Also, please invite friends and colleagues who you think would be interested. Just forward them this link: https://policewriter.com/webinar-ptsd-cops-writers-march-29th-2025/.
If you have an idea for a topic and/or speaker for a future webinar, please send it to me: [email protected]. We’ll get to as many of these ideas as we can. Much appreciated!
See you in Las Vegas!
Steve Ditmars
Vice-President – Membership
Treasurer’s Report
The annual PSWA conference offers a variety of ways to get your name and your books in front of a tremendously receptive audience! Your advertising and sponsorships are a vital way to support the conference and without them, it wouldn’t be the great experience that it is, year after year. This year’s conference is shaping up to be another memorable one, and I look forward to seeing the many creative ways our members participate.
If you have any questions about the opportunities described below, please reach out to me at [email protected].
Conference Sponsorships (New Opportunity!)
Member who donate $75 or more in general support of the conference will have their names printed on the conference bags. The current conference registration fee barely covers the escalating costs of this meeting, and we don’t want to raise fees beyond the reach of members. By making extra sponsorship support voluntary, PSWA will come out a little ahead, and you will have the benefit of repeat name exposure and knowing you’re helping strengthen your organization. You can make your sponsorship payment by PayPal; please send it to [email protected] by April 15, 2025. Many thanks for your help!
Program Advertising
Below are the details about advertising in the 2025 conference program.
- Deadline: send to Kelli via email at [email protected], no later than Monday, June 9, 2025
- File format: .doc, .pdf, or .jpg. All ads will be printed in color.
- Inside front cover, inside back cover, or outside back cover: $250; Size: 8.5 x 11 inches (trim); 8.875 x 11.25 (bleed)
- Full inside page: $200; Size: 8.5 x 11 inches (trim); 8.875 x 11.25 (bleed)
- 1/2 inside page: $100; Size: 7 x 4.625 inches (horizontal) or 3.5 x 9.25 (vertical)
- 1/4 inside page: $50; Size 3.5 x 4.625 inches (vertical)
- Payment via PayPal to [email protected]
We can accommodate as many inside ads as we receive. Cover spots are, of course, limited, so send in your payment early to reserve your spot. Advertising is open to any PSWA member whether attending this year’s conference or not.
Conference Bag Swag
Every year we receive fun items to place in the conference bags—pens, postcards, keychains, bookmarks, mini sewing kits, eyeglass cloths, and the like. Your items should be crime-related or promotional—and we would love to have them. The possibilities are endless. All we ask is they be small items and non-breakable—NOT mugs, cups, water bottles, etc. Remember, members have to travel with them! And no more than 50 of each item. Mail by Monday, June 30, 2025, to:
Kelli Peacock
8983 East Orchid Vine Drive
Tucson, AZ 85747
Questions? [email protected]
Refreshment Sponsorships
Refreshment sponsorships are $160 each, and if you want to share with someone, that’s awesome. You’ll be recognized in the conference program and have a tent card with your name(s) during your time slot. Reserve your spot by contacting Kelli (email above), who will confirm availability. The time-slots are:
Thursday cocktail party or Saturday evening awards party
Friday morning or afternoon session
Saturday morning or afternoon session
Sunday morning session
Send Payment via PayPal to [email protected] by Monday, June 2.
Thank you for your participation.
Kelli Peacock
PSWA Treasurer
2025 Conference Update
The Roaring Twentieth, our next PSWA Conference, will be held July 17-20, 2025, and it’s getting closer all the time. Yeah, this is number twenty and we’re going all-out to make it extra-special, starting with a fabulous line-up of featured speakers.
Program Highlights
Friday morning has retired LAPD detective and acclaimed writer, Mike Brandt with “Rolling Out a Story.” He will be detailing some of the tricks to perfecting a dynamite story and an ending that will knock readers off the seats of their chairs. After a long career as an LAPD homicide detective specializing in gang crimes, Mike directed the LAPD’s Health Care Fraud Department. He’s a marathon runner, mountain climber, and, it goes without saying, an accomplished author. Maybe he’ll even reveal how he came by his pseudonym, Brandon Michaels.
Friday afternoon we have Bob Doerr “From OSI to NCIS to CID—Law Enforcement in the Military.” Bob, a retired Air Force colonel and 28-year veteran, is one of the real-life military heroes we write about. And he’s also a talented writer. He’ll tell us how law enforcement works in the various branches of the military, learned through his specialization in criminal investigations and counterintelligence. The latter involved close coordination with the security agencies of many countries. Forget what you see on TV; Bob is the real deal, and he’ll set the record straight.
Saturday morning acclaimed actor and audiobook narrator, Scott Ellis, talks about “From Print to Audio—Producing an Audio Book.” As some of our members have found, audio books are a great way to reach a whole new audience. Scott has narrated more than 100 audiobooks himself, and he and his wife, Josie, own Ellis-Audiobooks. They’ve helped many authors bring their first projects to audio. Scott will discuss the ins and outs of audiobook production. I’m really looking forward to hearing what he has to say.
Saturday afternoon Police Sergeant Joshua Lee will take us for a walk on the wild side with “Navigating the Dark Web: What You Need to Know.” You’ve heard of the dangers of the Dark Web, now we’ll go there. Josh is with the Organized Crime, Human Trafficking, and Complex Financial Crimes Division of the Mesa, Ariz., Police Department. We discover the ins and outs of this risky territory and get an inside look at what it takes to navigate it. Fasten your seatbelts for this one!
Those are some of the presentation highlights so far. I’m also working on a few other things, and expect to have the usual array of publishers to talk about the present state of the industry and hear your pitches. This in itself is an invaluable opportunity for attendees. Don’t miss out.
Pre-Conference Workshop
And don’t forget our Pre-Conference Workshop Thursday, July 17, 9 am to 3:15. This year authors Kelli Peacock and Frank Scalise will be running things. These two pros have a fantastic line-up of guest instructors. Our newsletter editor, Vicki Weisfeld, will lead off with “Use Your Tools. The Words that Make a Difference.” In today’s marketplace skillful writing can mean the difference between acceptance and rejection of your manuscript and is key to building a fan base.
Kelli Peacock will be covering subplots. She’ll answers such questions as, how many subplots do you need one in your novel? How do you weave them into the storyline? And how many subplots is too many? Real life is loaded with subplots—it’s complex and messy. As authors we must complicate the lives of our protagonists and even secondary characters through subplotting.
Frank Scalise then takes on “Managing Your Series.” Frank is the award winning author of many books and series. He’ll talk about managing a single series over time, including characters who change and those who don’t, continuity across books, keeping stories fresh, and creating emotional anchors. He’ll also discuss how an author can manage multiple series, including the tricky issue of characters from one series who pop up in another. What makes that work, or not.
Rounding the workshop sessions out, Colin Conway talks about a key issue in book promotion, “Developing Your Author Brand.” It’s no secret that not just your books, but your personality, your profile, your network, and more can affect success in today’s marketplace. In this session, you’ll learn how to be a stronger competitor in today’s publishing world.
Manuscript Critique
Authors attending the workshop may elect to have their work critiqued. This is your chance to engage in a one-on-one session with a published author. Submitted manuscripts are limited to 7000 words, and must be formatted in Times New Roman, 12 point, and double-spaced in a document compatible with MS-Word. Critique comments and suggestions will be provided via the Track Changes feature. This critique is FREE for workshop attendees; at standard market rates, it’s a member benefit with a conservative value of $350.
Hotel Room Discount
And don’t forget, the Orleans Hotel offers a 35 percent room rate discount for PSWA members attending the meeting. Book your room online by clicking this link to obtain the discount. If you make your reservation by phone (1-800-675-3267), provide this code (PSWG25C), and you will receive the discount.
Frolics
As I’ve mentioned previously, we’re considering having a “Come as your favorite character” costume contest on Friday’s session. Anybody interested? If so, email me at [email protected].
Last Words
What are you waiting for? Sign up today. Take it from me, the PSWA Conference is one of the friendliest and best of its kind, and I’ve been to a ton of them. Even if this is your first one, you won’t leave a stranger! The Roaring Twentieth is surely an experience you won’t want to miss! See you in Vegas!
Michael Black
Conference Coordinator
Writing Competition Report
Happy New Year. Did you make any new year’s resolutions? I didn’t.
The writing competition is off to a great start. The judges are being contacted, and those for the published books have already begun reading members’ entries.
I thought you’d like to know a little about what happens to your entries once I receive them. First, I log them into a program so nothing gets lost. If an entry is a published book, I send it to the judges right away, to give them plenty of time to read it. Each judge reads books in one category. Your books are judged against others in that category. For example, police procedurals are judged against other police procedurals. If a book receives a very low score, I may ask other judges to read it also.
Published fiction books are scored on twenty-five features: five different aspects of plot, character development, structure and prose, setting, and originality. This comprehensive approach ensures that all aspects of an entry are considered. Short stories are judged on ten features that are most important to a shorter work: the hook, believability of the setting, characters’ complexity, conflict, voice, point of view, dialog, flow, pacing, and polish (that is, whether they are free of grammatical errors and other slip-ups). Except for published books, entries are judged blind. The judge knows the entry only by the number I’ve assigned it.
When I receive the scores back from the judges, Tim Dees and I work together on creating and printing the awards. Then comes the fun of the Saturday night awards presentation. I admit it’s a kick to know who the winners are beforehand. It’s a delightful secret I have when talking with them on the days leading up to the ceremony.
Along with the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medallion awards, we give out the Marilyn Meredith Award for Excellence in Writing. What an honor that is, and it goes to the highest-scoring book, regardless of category. For the second year now, PSWA will also give an award for best book cover. That’s fun to select. The judges get together, and we whittle the possibilities down, book-by-book.
So, what are you waiting for? Do you have what it takes? Send me your entry. You have until March 31 to get them in, and you’ll find all the rules and the entry form here.
To receive a Medallion Award from PSWA is a great honor, and the competition is fierce. Our writers make it very hard for the judges, but they love it.
See you at the Roaring Twentieth conference in July.
Barbara M. Hodges
Writing Competition Chairperson
It’s Deadline Season! Mark Your Calendars
Details are on the web and in the articles above
March 29 – PSWA Webinar with Ellen Kirschman: “PTSD, Cops, and Writers”
March 31 – PSWA Writing Competition entry deadline
April 15 – Conference Sponsorship deadline
June 2 – Refreshment Sponsorship deadline
June 9 – Program Advertisements deadline
June 30 – Conference Bag swag deadline
July 17 – Pre-Conference Workshop
July 17-20 PSWA Annual Conference, The Roaring Twentieth
Member News
Member Mark Edward Langley will be featured on an upcoming “Write on Four Corners” podcast originating from Farmington, N.M. The interview WILL AIR (Date Change) on KSJE 90.9 FM on March 3, and you can listen anytime afterward via KSJE’s podcast archive or wherever you listen to podcasts, Mark says, including Apple, IHeart, Spotify, Audible, and others. “I always enjoy speaking with folks and sharing with new readers my journey through the writing world. Check it out!”
In the December PSWA newsletter, Peg Roche described her experience in converting her books to audio. She’s just finished her latest: FIRE for HIRE, available for purchase here in a print format, as well. PSWA members interested in obtaining a free audio copy of this book can send an email to her website (https://www.meroche.com). Details on how to order are in her website’s newsletter section. She’ll send you the access code and directions for downloading. And check out the nifty snowstorm on Peg’s home page!
And, in another audio update from December, Allen Grimes reports that the audiobook for his book, When the Lantern Swings, went live on January 21st (available here). Like Peg, Allen chose to narrate his own work. The conference presentation on audiobooks will be right up these members’ alley!
Steve Rush’s new crime thriller, The Shocking Truth, is now available on Amazon. Detective Mike Canyon enjoys life with his wife and three children in Avoca, Okla., until the murders of two prominent citizens frighten the community. A cryptic warning and the only evidence—a dead man’s thumbprint—strengthen Canyon’s resolve to find the killer!
Mike Black advises that his western novel of two stories told as one, Where Legends Lie, is now available on both Amazon and the Genius Books website. His first Bass Reeves novel, Legends of the West, will be rereleased in paperback by Genius soon, and he hopes his second Bass Reeves book, Retribution Trail, will be available by conference time. “Keep your fingers crossed,” he says. Also, Mike’s long short story, “Nobody Cares,” will appear in the May/June issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, on sale April 18. Congratulations, Mike!
Barbara Lloyd’s short story, “Tommy Wants to Kill His Wife,” won second place in the 2023 PSWA writing competition and is included in Writers Unblocked, an anthology released in January, sponsored by the Writers of Southern Nevada and presented by the Henderson Writers Group. Once again, the PSWA Awards point the way to publishing success!
Marcia Rosen advises that Book Two in her latest mystery series, Agatha, Raymond, Sherlock, and Me, titled The Cinderella Murders, will be published by Artemesia Publishing in 2026. It follows on the heels of Book One, her well-regarded 2023 release, Murder at the Zoo. And, speaking of heels, Marcia says in her latest, the murderer has a shoe fetish! Stay up-to-date with her prolific writing via her website.
A murder that took place during a London vacation inspired John G. Bluck to write the fifth novel in his Luke Ryder mystery/thriller series, Headless in London. It’s published by Rough Edges Press, an imprint of Wolfpack Publishing (a frequent PSWA conference presenter). In the heart of London, Kentucky Deputy Sheriff Luke Ryder and his new wife, Layla, find their honeymoon disrupted by a gruesome discovery—a beheaded corpse linked to a high-stakes espionage plot. He’s soon drawn into a web of murder, betrayal, and international intrigue. You can subscribe to Bluck’s e-mail newsletter here.
David Dean is on a roll! His story, “Aswarby Hall,” appears in the current issue (March/April) of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. It’s a fun story too! An intrepid alienist, possible ghosts, a poison garden, and a butler with ill-disguised opinions. And in EQMM’s following issue (May/June), he’ll have another titled, “The Portrait of Adrian Whyte.”
Member Frank Scalise (writing as Frank Saverio) is diving into two new ponds: the fantasy genre and the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. A Burnt Summer, Frank’s first book in the Seasons Of Wither fantasy series, is being launched with a monthlong Kickstarter campaign that begins March 1st. Backers receive an ebook, a paperback, or other items, depending on the level of support they choose. Says Frank, “I grew up reading fantasy and science fiction, so I’m thrilled to finally be writing in these genres. As for Kickstarter, I wanted to try this strategy for creative support. I’ll report back after the campaign is over, in case other members are interested in trying it themselves.” Click here to check out, follow, and/or back the campaign.
“Here’s Looking at You,” a short story by Vicki Weisfeld, published in Yellow Mama on Valentine’s Day 2024, has been selected for the forthcoming anthology of 2024’s Best Private Eye Stories, edited by Michael Bracken.
It’s great to see members giving back to the crime-writing community too. Jim Guigli reports he’s one of three members of the Private Eye Writers of America’s “Best P.I. Short Story Committee,” busily reading stories published in 2024 for this year’s Shamus awards. Do you have one? The deadline is March 31, submission information here.
The Writing Craft: Upping Your Game
Don’t forget the Pre-Conference Workshop the day prior to the annual conference, where much of the focus is on writing, writing, writing.
The Power of Anecdote
By Joe Haggerty
The following is an article I wrote for our union paper, Simulcast, as a tribute to Officer Brian Gibson, shot to death while sitting in his police car writing a report. He was murdered on my birthday, February 5, 1997. I’ve written tribute poems for him and other officers killed in the line of duty, their families, and their colleagues grieving over lost friendships and the realization that “there but for the grace of God go I.” (Find many of these poems in Joe’s book A Vice Cop’s Poems of the Street, including one about Brian Gibson titled, “A Family Man.”—editor)
Shut Down the City
“Shut down the city” was what Officer Brian Gibson and his best friend agreed to do if either of them died in the line of duty. Well, shutting down the city is exactly what happened.
As the funeral procession proceeded westward on Pennsylvania Avenue, people stopped what they were doing, walked to the curb, and stood erect as the procession drove by. I saw people saluting. I saw people holding a hand over their heart. I saw Black people, white people, Latin people, and Asian people, all sharing our grief and giving respect to a fallen hero.
The U.S. Park Police stood beside their motorcycles, squad cars, and horses. In the Potomac, the Harbor Patrol lined up their boats, lights flashing, their officers saluting. The police at the National Zoo saluted. The procession included officers and cars of the District’s Metropolitan Police Department, as well as those from Maryland and Virginia. I rode somewhere in the middle of the procession and couldn’t see its beginning, nor could I see its end. It must have gone on for miles.
We turned onto Interstate 395, known for its constant traffic. Cars stopped on both sides of the Interstate, and their occupants stood alongside. From I-395, the procession turned onto Maine Avenue, then Independence Avenue. It was an honorable route for Officer Gibson’s last ride.
We passed near the Vietnam Veterans and Korean War Veterans Memorials. Although Officer Gibson was too young to serve in those wars, he typified the kind of Americans who gave their lives for their country, and indeed, as a Marine reservist, he did serve in Desert Storm. In driving by these sacred places, it seemed to me a mutual respect passed among the spirits of these fallen heroes.
We also passed the Lincoln Memorial. Lincoln represents America’s first attempt at racial equality. He represents freedom and humanity. Fittingly, the Memorial is where Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his most memorable sermon of hope and understanding, “I have a dream.”
When we turned toward Rock Creek, we passed a building named for another fallen hero, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. President Kennedy will always be seen as a defender of Americans discriminated against and oppressed, the epitome of a fallen hero. His funeral was the most watched and most sorrow-felt in the District of Columbia’s history. Officer Gibson’s funeral renewed the sense of loss I felt on that earlier occasion, when someone we depended on, someone we trusted, and someone we saw as strong, capable, and invincible was brought down by a cowardly assassin’s bullet.
But, as we entered Rock Creek Park, a sense of hope returned to me. The park’s rolling creek and towering trees are one of God’s cathedrals. As the procession passed through this natural beauty, I realized the loss and sorrow I felt will always be there, but I also felt ready for the work needed to prevent this from happening to other officers and their families.
As we approached the Fourth District Police Station, we passed the Ibex nightclub where Officer Gibson was killed. I personally was very gratified to see all the children across the street from Station. Black-draped scout car #1413, which Officer Gibson drove that fateful night, was parked in front. The children’s teachers and parents should be commended for showing them the importance of the police to the community. We are not the enemy.
I did not know Officer Gibson, but I know many police officers like him: dedicated to their jobs and to helping the community. It was an honor to attend his funeral, and he honored all of us with his high standard of integrity and devotion to duty. I felt a great sense of pride in shutting down the city, but I hope I never have to do it again.
Prime Your Readers with Foreshadowing
“What’s hinted at in the shadows can add intriguing layers of depth and interest” to a story, says author/editor Tiffany Yates Martin in a recent article. That’s especially true in crime and thriller stories where hints in the plot keep tension high and pages turning. What are some ways to accomplish this?
Sometimes, you can foreshadow directly. A cop can tell his partner, “If you don’t straighten out that situation with your wife, you’ll be too distracted on the job. That’s dangerous.” And, that’s exactly what happens. Direct foreshadowing can appear in the narrative, dialog, and even the title. British crime writer Elizabeth George titled a book What Happened Before He Shot Her. Equally direct: the title of the short story, “Meet Me at the Church and Bring All the Guns” by Bruce Arthurs. I’m hoping it’s humorous.
Another direct approach is prophecies and premonitions. Fortune-tellers and tarot readers. Banquo’s ghost and Macbeth’s witches. Your characters may misinterpret the signs, but they settle in the reader’s mind. You’ve probably heard Anton Chekhov’s advice to playwrights not to put a gun in the story early on unless it’s going to go off later. If you put something on display, readers will think it’s important. 
That “gun” is the missing brother who resurfaces at a key moment; it’s the trip to Cabela’s for bear spray, “just in case.” Your reader now expects that bear. (The photo is of the Knives Out movie set. Hefty foreshadowing there!)
Indirect foreshadowing is a more subtle approach and may not even register in a reader’s conscious mind, but helps the story pieces come together believably. You can achieve it through repeated symbols and motifs that enter a story almost invisibly, but it takes some skill. I’m not very good at figuring out the guilty person in a tv show, but I do recognize when a writer is telling me some detail that sticks out oddly or doesn’t quite fit. Planting a seed, but clumsily.
Martin calls another indirect technique “echoed events,” which is when something relatively banal is repeated later when the stakes are much higher. Someone with a shellfish allergy avoids the shrimp cocktail in Chapter 2 and is served oyster stuffing that produces a memorable Thanksgiving in Chapter 22.
You also can foreshadow the direction of the story by how you set the mood at the beginning. The prologue of the new gothic horror best-seller Victorian Psycho begins, “Death everywhere. Death in the river, in the corpses floating . . .” Chapter 1 isn’t much better: “Ensor House sits on a stretch of moorland, all raised brows and double chin, like a clasp-handed banker about to deliver terrible news.” You can’t misread the direction here.
Using one or more foreshadowing techniques will help pull a story together, making its conclusions, as Martin says, “organic, cohesive, and inevitable.”
Writer’s Digest says Martin’s website (FoxPrint Editorial) is one of the best for authors.
Story Ideas and Resources
The ICISF Comprehensive Model
By Rick Barton
We naturally turn to a friend or colleague when the demands of life cause stress beyond a normal limit. In the best scenario, our colleague or peer knows how to listen and what to say. In the world of public safety, and most certainly for responders, exposure to traumatic incidents produces abnormal levels of critical incident stress. They cope, or not, via assorted self-treatment approaches, that may include destructive behavior. Everyone in such professions is familiar with this reality.
These truths are precisely why, 50 years ago, Dr. Jeff Mitchell began to explore a program to help firefighters deal with critical incident stress. Eventually, he and Dr. George Everly, Jr., developed critical incident stress management (CISM) into a comprehensive program for peer support teams, and they founded the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation (ICISF). They remain involved with the ICISF today, and their model continues to serve responders and many other professions. The work is shared largely through a program of training, information dissemination, and consultation. One of the features of the ICISF model is that each CISM team should have the support and guidance of a clinical professional.
Despite the longstanding success of the ICISF model and CISM, it has critics. In large part, the criticism is a matter of misunderstanding. The plain truth is that CISM, when properly conducted, is very effective. Like any system that features specific techniques, it requires that they be used properly. CISM techniques are designed to help people immediately after trauma, as well as later on, when they have processed the effects of the incident. Some specific techniques are useful in one-on-one support and some in a group dynamic. There is also a strong emphasis on peer support, which is akin to a friend approaching a friend for help, and there are scores of peer support teams around the United States and in other countries.
Of special interest to PSWA members, the ICISF includes opportunities for writers to share their work through an open-access journal titled Crisis, Stress, and Human Resilience: An International Journal. Writers can submit their work without charge, and the publication fee is currently waived. The journal welcomes submissions featuring a case study, a scholarly review, a book review, or a paper about program development.
The CISM Bookstore offers another opportunity for both readers and writers. This online store offers both hard copy and eBooks. Its welcome message says, “an appetite for learning offers a healthy craving.” As these features grow, the ICISF needs experienced editors to prepare new copy for publication. Anyone with such skill is invited to contact the ICISF CISM Bookstore, and we look forward to hearing from people who share our desire to improve the lives of those who make us safe.
Publishing Tips and Travails
Where to Submit that Perfect Manuscript
If you’re looking for fresh places to submit your writing, here’s an article by Dennis James Sweeney describing various publishing resource guides. The article (updated as recently as two weeks ago) lists various types of guides and describes their strengths and limitations. Though you’re probably familiar with some of them already, you may find a couple of new ones that fit your needs and give you some ideas (hope so!). Sweeney, a small press author, is the author of a new book, How to Submit.
Are You Traditional? Hybrid? Independent?
Jane Friedman’s “Key Book Publishing Paths: 2025-26” chart describes today’s major pathways to publishing (downloadable from this site). Friedman says the complicated question, “What is the best way to publish my work?” is becoming increasingly difficult to answer. There are many models, which are changing fairly rapidly, and the best path may be to use some combination of traditional, hybrid, and self-publishing, based on what you are trying to accomplish with each book. This handy summary will get you up to speed.
Who Owns Your Library?
If you download books to your Kindle (or encourages your readers to do so), a big change at Amazon may affect you, says a late-February article in Vice. Until very recently, you could download Kindle books to your own computer. They were yours. No more. Amazon now says, “Starting February 25, 2025, the ‘Download and Transfer via USB option will no longer be available.’” You can still download Kindle books to Wi-Fi enabled devices, of course, but you can’t save them to your computer.
Alas, books that reside only on a device can later be edited or removed altogether from your device(s). Amazon has done so in the past, removing two of George Orwell’s books (ironically). “Last year, Penguin Books’ long, red editing pen struck again by reaching into Kindle users’ accounts to edit their copies of books by Roald Dahl, R.L. Stine, and Agatha Christie.” In short, you don’t own the books in your Kindle library, you’re only licensing the content and “just get to use it at the discretion of their whims.” Old-fashioned paper and ink never looked so good.
Corral Your URL
By Tim Dees
As I update the membership roster I see a recurring issue with authors’ references to their published works, especially on Amazon. Short, easy-to-remember web addresses or URLs (for Uniform Resource Locators) got gobbled up quickly at the dawn of the World Wide Web. A few speculators made out big by anticipating the demand for URLs like mcdonalds.com and delta.com, buying them for a token fee, then sitting on them until the corporate namesake came along and made a $$$$ offer. This was called “domain squatting.” Now, new websites typically have made-up, nonsense words like Lumosity.com, as most of the commoner, dictionary words are spoken for.
Amazon.com may be a short URL, but by the time you add on the specific characters that point to your book, you can have a URL dozens of characters long. Not only is it ripe for typos, but it won’t fit in the spaces that most forms allocate for that information. So, here’s how to get around that.
If you look at the URL for most products listed on Amazon, shortly after “amazon.com” you’ll see a string of characters, often prefaced by “dp,” as in https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E9MBUY0. In this example, those last ten characters point to a thriller involving the Shanghai Police. The URL that came up on my initial search was one of those 500-character monsters because, technically, it was not the URL for the book, but for my search of that book. The same thing can happen when I link from one book to the other on Amazon. Many characters are used to create the URL for the link, way beyond the URL needed to identify the book itself.
By trimming out “ref” or “?” in the URL and the many characters following it, while preserving only the “dp” prefix and the (usually) ten-digit Amazon stock number, I get a much more manageable web address. If you try this and the URL you get includes the book or product name, try trimming that out, as well. (Editor’s note: This did not work for me. To get the URL for my book, I had to retain the title and my name. My book’s Amazon URL is https://www.amazon.com/Architect-Courage-Victoria-Weisfeld/dp/1953434819. Also note that each edition of a book—hardcover, paperback, ebook, audio—will have a different URL.)
I remove everything between slash marks, and ensure there are no double slash marks except at the beginning: https://. You may need to do some trial-and-error editing, but eventually you will have a URL of manageable length (like the one for the Shanghai book) that will point readers to the right place.
If Vicki believed that her URL, which includes the book title and her name, is still too long, she could create an abbreviated URL, and so can you. Go to https://shorturl.at (there are many other services that do the same thing), paste your still-unwieldy URL into the blank, and click “Shorten URL.” Be sure you’re using just the URL for the book, which ends with the stock number. Check back on your shortened URLs from time to time, as the services that create them don’t always maintain the links forever.
Editor’s Turn
Every January 1, thousands of literary works have completed their 95-year sentence under copyright and obtain the freedom of the public domain (AI image from Pixabay). If you ever wanted to quote one of them, or for that matter, any literary work from the 1920s, the whole decade is now available to you. This year’s new batch includes books copyrighted in 1929, such as The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner, Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials Mystery, and Ellery Queen’s The Roman Hat Mystery. When Faulkner accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949, his words were quite germane to crime writing: “The writer’s duty is to write about (compassion and sacrifice and endurance). The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.”
Help Wanted: Think you might someday like a turn as editor of the PSWA newsletter? As part of your Board’s efforts to ensure smooth transitions from one leadership generation to the next, I’d be happy to take on a Number Two who wants to become familiar with how the newsletter is put together, and perhaps take over at some point. The newsletter has four issues a year and requires a year-round “nose for news” that members might find helpful. If you like that kind of thing, it’s lots of fun!