Category: writer

Confessions of a Cop Camp ‘guinea pig’

~ sharon ~ Leave a comment

It was was jam packed and over too soon

Instructors and students from the first “Cop Camp” pose after the crime scene exercise.

From the informal gathering the night before it started to the celebratory champaign at the end, Cop Camp in Appleton, Wisconsin, was amazing and inspiring.

Cop Camp is the informal name for the Cops and Writers Interactive Conference, and I was lucky enough to be in the inaugural group June 1-4.

Patrick O’Donnell and RJ Beam

Cop, writer and Wisconsin technical college instructor R.J. Beam approached Cops and Writers podcast host and author Patrick O’Donnell, a retired Milwaukee police officer, about setting up a workshop. They enlisted friends in law enforcement from across the nation, as well as friends from the indie writing world. Their goal was to develop a retreat for crime writers who want to get it right. Nothing too big, they planned to cap it at 30 to 40 writers.

Timing and conflict with other events reduced the number of the inaugural class to about a dozen. But for those of us who were there, it was both enlightening and inspiring. And, frankly, I am looking forward to next year. The small-group setting really appealed to my needs as a writer.

An end-of-day gathering

Most of us arrived the night before and gathered in the hotel restaurant for a casual gathering where we met, chatted, hoisted a few beverages, and waited while Patrick made trips to the airport to collect speakers whose flights were delayed. The friendly companionship we started the first night became a hallmark of the event.

Not only did we hear detailed first-hand accounts from folks who work in every aspect of law-enforcement, we also had time with some top-earning, fast-release indie authors, such as Michael Anderle.

I also enjoyed meeting some new authors — most from around the Midwest. One new friend, Madeleine Roberts, who writes as Madeleine Eskedahl, came all the way from New Zealand to immerse herself in US cop culture. (She also stayed for the following week’s Writers’ Police Academy, but I’ve talked about that before.)

Speaker Anne E. Schwartz with CSI Falynne Gerisch.

Some of my favorite hands-on sessions were with Appleton, Wisconsin, crime scene investigator Falynne Gerisch. Not only did she help us collect fingerprints in a variety of ways, she also showed us some other techniques for evidence collection. And she’ll be showing up in my work-in-progress as my CSI.

B Adam Richardson

I also loved the crime scene. We were teamed up with partners to investigate a shooting death at the police academy version of the “No-Tell Motel.” After we collected evidence and formed our theories, we got to debrief. And then, in one of the last sessions, B Adam Richarson of the Writer’s Detective Bureau podcast, turned our investigation into a murder board.

I could go on much longer, but I like to keep these short. Suffice it to say, I think if you are a slightly introverted crime fiction (or true crime) writer — or even if you are outgoing but love to get things right — you owe it to yourself to grab one of the seats at next year’s event.

You just can’t have mine.

(The top photo was provided by Cop Camp organizers; the rest are Sharon’s.)

between the pages

~ sharon ~ 1 Comment

crime fiction

I just added a quick review of Dorothy Gilman’s The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax.

It’s the first in my focus on crime fiction, broadly defined. I also developed my own five-gun, violence-rating system, in case that influences your reading choices.

Female flyers worth celebrating

~ sharon ~ Leave a comment
(Sharon’s illustration)

While I was in Appleton, Wisconsin, earlier this month, I met two women crime fiction writers from New Zealand and England. (But that’s another story.) Neither had a car, so I took them to a couple of places they wanted to visit. One was a shooting range. The other was the Experimental Aircraft Association museum in Oshkosh.

At the EAA museum, we went our separate ways to explore the huge museum and its many exhibits. I was surprised to find two areas of tribute to women aviators. There may have been more, but we only had about an hour to spend, so we kind of flew through. (No pun intended.)

One of the areas was dedicated to the history of the women called WASPs, variously defined as the Women Airforce Service Pilots, Women’s Army Service Pilots and Women’s Auxiliary Service Pilots. (There’s a bit of history at  https://www.worldwariiaviation.org/women-air-force-service-pilots-wasp.) Posters showed the history of their service, and some of the things they did during World War II. There was also an example of their uniforms.

Another area was a walk-through portrait gallery. With these ten women (portraits with this post) were some of the men who contributed to aviation history. Sure, I knew about Amelia Earhart and Sally Ride, and I just learned about Bessie Coleman. But the others were new to me.

Roald Dahl wrote about fifinellas in his 1942 book, Gremlins. They are, he explained, female gremlins who plagued the pilots of the Royal Air Force. Walt Disney illustrated the book and developed the first image of a fifinella. The one at the EAA museum looks different, but her story is the same.

Disney and his empire are picky about the use of their illustrations, but in what I can only assume was generosity borne of the war effort, he allowed his original drawing in the Fifinella Gazette, the WASP newsletter, and to be used — for at least two years — as the official mascot of the WASPs. The initial permission could be renewed upon request.

Apparently (according to a history of the WASPs online), women pilots were already creating unofficial patches to wear on their flight jackets and other attire.

Another surprise to me was learning about Nancy Harkness Love, who was a civilian in the Army Air Force. She commanded the first units of female pilots during WWII. She earned her pilots license at age 16, after she saw Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis in Paris. (He has a section in the EAA museum, too, and there’s a replica of his plane in the exhibit.) Nancy, who later became a Lieutenant Colonel in the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots, earned a commercial pilot’s license in 1932. She flew people around the U.S. Northeast to earn money while a student at Vassar College.

Despite her work, she had to leave college after her junior year because she and her parents couldn’t afford it. She took a job selling aircraft in Boston, then worked as a test pilot for industry and for the Burea of Air Commerce (today, the Federal Aviation Administration).

She also flew across the country to try to convince communities and farmers to paint navigational signs on water towers and barns to improve flying safety.

(Sharon’s photo)

If you plan to visit the Oshkosh area, this is the 75th anniversary of the EAA. That makes it a great year to consider attending the annual Airventure. I think it’s probably the biggest “family reunion” of pilots and flying afficiandos in the world. Check it out at https://www.eaa.org/airventure.

And be sure to make a stop at the museum. I plan to go back.

Art comes in many forms

~ sharon ~ Leave a comment
(Montgomery Art Museum exterior from https://mmfa.org/; others are Sharon’s photos)

When I go on trips, I love to stop at museums. On my trip this month, I had my first visit to both the art museum in Montgomery, Alabama, and the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky. Each is a tiny gem of a museum.

The art museum has a variety of media — both two- and three-dimensional. It’s a favorite of my almost-three-year-old grandson because of the many activities in an interactive children’s area. One that I liked was the Anatomy of a Painting. Opening sliding panels reveal the steps of the painting from an underlying sketch to the final layer of color. There are also a variety of building blocks, sketch tables and other art treats he and older children can enjoy.

A blown glass exhibit included a bright yellow pear, a seed-speckled strawberry and a purple plum by artists Joey Kirkpatrick and Flora Mace. Another exhibit featured the work of Ginny Ruffner, working with Grant Kirkpatrick — both based in Seattle, Washington. From an apparently bleak landscape of glass tree stumps sprout floral oases. This is one I wish I’d had more time to stroll through.

Admission is free, but be as generous as you can with your donations.

(Justin Ming Yong’s work; Sharon’s photo)

The National Quilt Museum is one I’ve wanted to visit for several years. No, I don’t quilt, but I admire those who work in this fabric art form. The museum has hundreds of quilts in its collection, but the building is too small to display them all at once. That’s an advantage, though, because it means there will likely be something fresh every time you stop.

One of my favorite exhibits was by Canadian artist Justin Ming Yong who works in abstract forms. His show in Paducah, “To Fill a Field,” appears to be on loan from the Toronto Arts Council and funded by the city of Toronto. I was enthralled by his work.

Some of the other exhibits featured traditional quilts, quilted garments, and miniature quilts displayed in doll-house sized rooms. A quilt mural of poppies was so large it reminded me of Monet’s water lily paintings at L’Orangerie museum in Paris. And the quilts of children playing were so detailed, it was easy to forget they were “painted” in cloth.

There was a small admission fee, but well worth it for the opportunity to enjoy so many amazing quilts.

I’m afraid I wasn’t able to walk away from either without a few purchases at their gift shops. Looking forward to my next visits.

À bientôt!

To (self-)publish or not to (self-)publish….

~ sharon ~ Leave a comment
(Wikipedia photo)

I finally made it past the programs and other materials I’ve been working on all March. And I managed to squeak over the finish line in a class I took on self-publishing.

I’ve grown up imagining seeing my books on the library shelf. “The” library was always the one in my home town, the one where I spent a lot of my spare time as a kid, the one where I got my first job.

But my first full time job — at my hometown newspaper — conditioned me to expect to hear presses run minutes after the last story landed on the last page. Not an ideal expectation for someone seeking a traditional book publishing experience, where the day you type “the end” can be years before the day you open the box with the finished copies of the book from the publisher.

I know more than most, I suppose, about the printing process. I even took a printing class when I was in college. I loved setting type and working hand-fed presses. But that’s another story.

I’ve waited so long to devote time to writing fiction, that I have my doubts about being able to wait patiently for that traditional book publishing cycle. And I haven’t even looked for an agent yet (although I’ve had a couple encourage me to send them something when I finish the book).

So, the class in self-publishing was led by Jim Jackson, a past president and past member of the Sisters in Crime Guppy Chapter. The Guppies are “the great unpublished,” although the name is a misnomer since many members stay in the chapter after they’re published, sharing what they’ve learned with the rest of us who haven’t reached that lofty stage yet.

Jim taught a great class on revisions last year. It was intense, but amazingly organized and detailed. I loved it.

When I heard he was teaching one on self-publishing, I new it, too, would be well-planned, well-researched and, well, amazing. I figured it would be the ideal way to get all the facts so I could make a good decision about whether to keep trying for a traditional contract or just go it alone.

I haven’t made my final decision yet, but I do feel well-prepared to make it in the next few months.

I’ll keep you posted.