8 Cognitive Characteristics of Career Criminals

          Professor Thomas Fagan of Nova Southeastern University gave a fascinating presentation to our chapter of Mystery Writers of America at lunch on Saturday.

He presented eight cognitive characteristics of career criminals—eight thinking errors that direct their behavior. In general career criminals are irresponsible, impulsive, self-centered, pleasure-seeking and free of negative controlling emotions like fear and guilt. They have poor interpersonal relationships—as soon as the other person stops meeting the criminal’s needs, the criminal leaves the relationship. Their drug of choice is usually a stimulant (because they are bored and need distraction) or enough alcohol to enable them to overcome their inhibitions.

1.       Mollification: a tendency to rationalize, to deny harm to others and divert blame by questioning the motives of others. “The security guard knew his job was dangerous and he shouldn’t have drawn his gun. I wouldn’t have shot him if he hadn’t.”

2.       Cutoff:  the career criminal quickly stops evaluating the outcome of his behavior. “What the hell, I’m already here at the bank, I might as well go through with the robbery.”

3.       Entitlement: They have the right to do what they want because it’s all about them. He told a story about a criminal whose mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and who asked for a phone call to her. But instead of anything sympathetic, he asked “Where’s the check you usually send me?”

4.       Power Orientation: the tendency to only look at others and situations as the strong versus the weak. If you are perceived as weak, the criminal will seek to exploit you—even if you are trying to be helpful.

5.       Sentimentality:  They see themselves in a positive light because they feel sentimental about some things, like children and small animals. “I’m a good person because I donate to charity, or take care of a dog.” This is also why pedophiles are the lowest in the pecking order in prison, because the other inmates are sentimental about children.

6.       Super Optimism: The belief that they are invincible. They have a fantasy belief that they won’t get caught. It’s the Achilles heel of career criminals, because they operate within patterns that have worked before, even though there is always a threat that they won’t work this time.

7.       Cognitive indolence or laziness: Their thinking style takes the path of least resistance. They are lazy and easily bored, and will go outside society’s rules just to do something different. They’re always pushing the limits, and making that one step over the line. This habit begins in childhood, where they are the first to smoke, drink, do drugs or have sex. However, this need to break the rules often declines after age 40, as they settle into a routine.

8.       Discontinuity: They are easily distracted by their environment and lose sight of their objectives. Even a criminal who manages to turn his life around during or after prison is still vulnerable to falling into old patterns.

The Russian Boy

When I was fourteen, I was lucky enough to be sent on a summer study program to France. My first taste of freedom from home came when we landed in Nice, on the French Riviera, in late June of 1972. I was intoxicated by the glamourous beaches, the gorgeous landscape and the ever-present sun. Right then and there I fell in love with Nice.

I went back some years later, for the summer between my junior and senior years in college. I rented a cheap apartment a few blocks from the beach (toilet down the hall, no shower anywhere, French doors that looked out to a busy street) and sat down to write a novel. When I wasn't writing I was wandering the city on my mobilette (moped), going out into the countryside or traveling along the coast road.

I was fascinated by the huge Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Nice, on the Boulevard du Tsarevich, and to learn that there was a sizable community of Russian nobles in Nice in the years before the Russian Revolution. I kept wanting to write something set there, but it wasn't until I came up with the idea for The Russian Boy that I was able to.

It was great fun to research the period. What did they eat? What kind of underwear did the men wear? How did they celebrate the holidays?

I also had to research current-day Nice, which is a lot different from the city I remember. But as the story took shape-- a painting created in 1912 that is stolen in the current day from a restorer's studio in Paris-- I fell in love with Nice all over again-- as well as with Rowan, Taylor, Dmitri and Alexei, the four point of view characters who tell the story.

To see more about the book, and read the first chapter, go to http://www.tinyurl.com/therussianboy

Have Body, Will Guard

The Have Body, Will Guard series am began with a daydream about running away to an exotic location, meeting a handsome guy and having an adventure. In the first book in the series, Three Wrong Turns in the Desert, Aidan Greene is dumped by his boyfriend of ten years, and on a whim he takes a job teaching English as a second language in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia.

He meets handsome bodyguard Liam McCullough and gets roped into helped him chase a Tuareg tribe through the desert. By the end of the book, they’re in love and Aidan decides to stay with Liam and become a bodyguard himself.

Dancing with the Tide picks up a few months later, after Aidan has attended a bodyguard training course and begun learning the business of personal protection. They are asked to protect a young Arabic pop star who has received death threats after coming out of the closet.

I wrote the first book hoping to reach a mainstream audience, so I drew the curtain on sex. But after signing with Loose Id, I knew I’d have to open those bedroom doors and show how Aidan and Liam connected. For the second book, though, I started with a bang-- literally. This new book is hot by design, and it was great fun to write.

One of the stories in the Surfer Boys anthology I edited was set in Djerba, a resort island off the coast of Tunisia, and I thought that would be a fun place to take Aidan and Liam and their client.

The guys go kite-surfing off the coast in this book as a way to work off some tension. Djerba has featured in Greek mythology and in Homer’s Odyssey, and it’s a gorgeous island of palm trees and resort hotels. Aidan and Liam explore the island while protecting their client, and the villa where they’re staying provides time for sexy encounters as well.

I was inspired by a lot of the photographs I found on line, like this one, of a turreted ruin somewhere in the Tunisian desert.



I love the bright, sun-washed look of these buildings. They remind me about the strong contrast between dark and light in these hot, sunny climates. There’s always going to be some danger in a Liam and Aidan book-- someone’s trying to kill the client, and there’s a mystery man who romances the client and then moves in. The book was a lot of fun to write, and I hope readers will enjoy it too.

In the third book in the series, Teach Me Tonight, they've been hired to protect Maks Bazarov, a spoiled teenager attending an English-language institute in Bizerte, on Tunisia's north coast, and sparks really start to fly (literally!) once they're in place. Someone really wants to kidnap Maks, and will go to great lengths to do so, even trying to set the monastery where the institute is taking place on fire.

Liam faces an opponent who represents his own dark side -- a soldier of fortune who is smart, strong and ruthless. Liam needs Joey’s help -- but will his attraction to his hunky pal damage his relationship with Aidan? Will Aidan turn his back on his burgeoning career as a bodyguard to return to his first love, teaching?
In his past life, teaching in Philadelphia and living with his ex-partner, Aidan had taken courses in massage, gourmet cooking, flower arranging, and a host of other skills, most of which proved useless in Tunis. The massage lessons, however, had been invaluable.

You can find all my Loose Id books here: http://www.loose-id.com/Our-Authors/Neil-Plakcy/

The Writer Wore Socks: Notes from Left Coast Crime

Left Coast Crime is a mystery fan convention which moves around the western part of the US every year. This year's was in Santa Fe, New Mexico and it was an excellent event.

The Santa Fe airport

The La Fonda,where the conference was set, is a charming hotel but sometimes you feel like Alice down the rabbit hole trying to find your way to the rooms. I didn't get my reservation in early enough so I stayed at the Inn and Spa at Loretto, around the corner, which was quite lovely.

The La Fonda Hotel, where the convention took place

My panel on Climate & Crime was up first and we had fun.  Vicki Delany began by insisting that there is no severe weather in Canada, but eventually capitulated because she realized Canadians take in stride a lot of bad weather that the rest of us find intimidating. Victoria Heckman and I talked about Hawaii, and Lance Zarimba added some Mexican color (his book, Vacation Therapy is set there).

View from my hotel window

Inn at Loretto

The short story panel was also very interesting-- I really think that having lots of stories available in e-format will energize the form. On Friday I participated in a panel on diversity in the mystery. We had African-American, gay, Native American and First Nations protagonists represented, but I believe the point that we all write about all types of characters was an important one to remember.
Some of the panels were great, others so-so. I enjoyed hearing Craig Johnson tell stories on the Old West - New West panel. And it was interesting to hear St. Martins' editor Keith Kahla and Barbara Peters, owner of Poisoned Pen press & bookstore, with their views on the future of publishing.
The native dancers from a local pueblo were great; the boys looked like refugees from Where the Wild Things Are, and the floor of the ballroom shook with their rhythm.

One of the dancers

Aside from some pollen & oxygen problems (and having to wear socks every day due to the cold) I enjoyed the conference. Hanging out with writers and readers is always a great time!

Dennis Lehane's 10 Questions

Dennis Lehane gave a terrific keynote speech at Sleuthfest on Saturday, in which he listed ten questions to ask about your mystery manuscript.
1. Does your story start on page one? Stories should begin at the first action.
2. Does the main character act soon enough? Stasis early in a novel is death.
3. Does the main character have a recognizable want? A clear want leads to action, which leads to the revelation of character.
4. Does the main character have a recognizable need? A need is theme, a want is plot.
5. Do the actions of the main character seem believable and authentic?
6. Does the protagonist go on a journey which leads to an epiphany? The story is the journey-- the plot is the car you drive on the journey.
7. Do the events in the story have dramatic inevitability?
8. Is something at stake-- for example, a piece of the main character's soul?
9. Have you written the book you want to read? A book of mortal event, with big dire action that leads to big dire consequences?
10. When in doubt, just telling the f---ing story.

Key West Literary Seminar

I wrote this report up for the food website eGullet.org, but never heard back from the editor in charge of the site, so I have given up on them and decided to post here.

Now in its 29th year, the Key West Literary Seminar focuses in 2011 on “The Hungry Muse: An exploration of Food in Literature.” Many participants will be familiar to dedicated foodies, including Ruth Reichl, Judith Jones, Frank Bruni and Molly O’Neill. The seminar has been broken into two halves; the program repeats, in slightly different format, two weekends a row in Key West.

Ruth Reichl began the conference with a talk in which she attempted to explain the reasons behind the explosion in food writing over the past twenty years or so. Her thesis was that as we have become disengaged from the production and preparation of food, we seek that connection through reading about it. Throughout the seminar she was an energetic and enthusiastic participant, with masses of dark curly hair and very skinny legs.

The rain disappeared and the first reception, at the Audubon House, went off as planned, with platters of moist turkey, an elaborate cheese table, and appetizers of grilled grouper wrapped in bacon, shrimp ceviche on toast, and lamb lollipops. The occasional raindrop filtering down through the high treetops was balanced out by liberal wine pourings.

Former poet laureate Billy Collins kicked off the Friday morning session with what was billed as “A Gravy Boatload of Poems” -- his own and others. His first choice was Mark Strand’s “Eating Poetry,” which begins with an arresting image of ink running from the corners of the poet’s mouth as he devours poetry.

Other Friday programs included a panel discussion between Jason Epstein, Darra Goldstein, Molly O’Neill and Calvin Trillin on the topic of “Transubstantiation: Madeleines, Anyone?” Sadly, as with many of the panel discussions, panelists hadn’t prepared in advance, made little attempt to stick to the topic, and rambled as they pleased. Did you know, for example, that Molly O’Neill couldn’t wait to get out of her hometown of Columbus, Ohio? I know that now-- since she mentioned it at least four or five times, pretty much during every panel where she spoke. I have to say I know an awful lot about her (I’d never heard of her before) because she pretty much repeated her biography as part of every panel she participated in.

The panelists were usually charming, with the exception of the elderly Mr. Epstein, who mumbled and fumbled and sometimes seemed confused as to where he was. But he was balanced out by the charming Judith Jones, who brought a wealth of knowledge and expertise to every panel she participated in. She mentioned that she felt we have bought into the idea that cooking is work, forgetting the pleasure involved in preparing food. She noted that the generation after World War II wanted to be liberated from the kitchen, and that packaged foods facilitated that liberation.

She also told the “true story” behind the scene in the movie Julie and Julia where she cancelled her dinner at Julie’s. Julia Child was horrified at the language Julie used in her blog and asked Jones not to have anything to do with Julie, even though Jones had been planning to make her visit about protecting the publisher’s rights rather than validating Julie’s project.

In cookbooks, Jones looks for works that use words precisely and explain what’s being done. The joy of Julia Child, she said, was that Child taught you techniques which you could then use in preparing your own recipes. She is also interested in books that focus on the pleasure of eating.

The program organizers worked with a number of different Key West restaurants to set up special menus for seminar participants. I ended up at the Banana Café, a French restaurant which served us an awesome seven-course meal, from appetizers of lukewarm spring potato filled with a goat-cheese-crème fraiche mousse topped with ossetra caviar and a marinated cherry tomato filled with a crab remoulade all the way through fish, duck and cheese courses, finishing with a chocolate truffle served on a tiny spoon. Each course was accompanied by French wines, and a representative of the wine distributor came to our table to explain each wine and how it matched the food.

One of Saturday’s highlights was a presentation by Julia Reed entitled “Drinking and Other Southern Pursuits.” She had the audience laughing to stories of after parties at her parents’ home in Mississippi, and the food and drink served then. In a hit-or-miss program, she was a hit, while a twenty-minute reading of a recipe for a stuffed leg of lamb was a definite miss. Molly O’Neill, who followed that speaker, even asked the audience, “Anyone out there awake after that?”

Roy Blount Jr. and Calvin Trillin shared the stage for the concluding event of Saturday night, entitled “What ever happened to chicken a la king?” They spent a couple of minutes wondering about lost foods-- then went on to joke about a dozen topics, some of them actually related to food. But their delivery was worth the price of admission.

The concluding reception was held at the Custom House museum, featuring cocktails and passed hors d’oeuvres, but with a focus on desserts including key lime pie, chocolate mousse, bananas foster and bread pudding.

The most provocative panel was one of the last, late on Sunday morning. Jason Epstein, Judith Jones, Molly O’Neill and Ruth Reichl addressed the catchall topic of “Food in America.” Epstein insisted that all you needed to learn how to cook was a cookbook and a good set of Japanese knives, though he did admit that he learned everything he knew about cooking while working in restaurants. Molly O’Neill differed with him, saying that she felt the Internet could deliver an immersive experience in demonstrating cooking techniques that a book couldn’t match.

Thinking About Grammar

I’m working on copy edits for MAHU BLOOD, and a couple of things keep coming up that are challenging some of my own ideas.

The first concerns mixing past and present tense. As an English teacher, I try to hammer into my students the need to stay in one tense, usually the past tense, in their writing. I try to do that myself. But my copy editors don’t seem to agree.

I understand their point of view. If something is still true, regardless of the time of the book, they think it should be in present tense. A lot of times that comes up in my definition of Hawaiian words. For example, as the first person narrator, I might write “I knew that ohana meant family.”

The copy editor changes that to “I knew that ohana means family.”

That just sounds wrong—mixing past and present in one sentence. Easy fix; remove the words “I knew that.” New sentence reads “Ohana means family.” But it’s still a present-tense sentence in the middle of a book written primarily in the past tense.

Rather than argue, I usually just go along with the copy editor’s changes. But every time it do, it rings a little bell in the back of my head.

My hero, Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa’aka, has an undergraduate degree in English. I gave him that background deliberately, so that his voice would be articulate and sound educated. He can drop in an occasional reference to English literature-- in MAHU BLOOD he sees an older woman surrounded by knitting, and calls her Madame Defarge. His partner, Ray Donne, is a Philly cop who has a college degree, though not in English. He asks Kimo how he knows the woman and Kimo says, “It’s a long story. Called A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens.” Ray just shakes his head and says, “English major.”

So Kimo knows his grammar, but I don’t expect him to be pedantic. Will he always use “whom” properly? Will he say, “I spoke to this guy who I was able to get hold of?” Or would he say “Whom I was able to get hold of?”

He’d certainly say “A guy like me,” rather than “A guy like I am.” But where do you draw the line?

This is why English teachers (and writers) go prematurely gray.

FBI Citizen’s Academy Week 6 - Lie Detector

As always, any errors here are mine, not the FBI’s.

The last part of week 6’s session was on the lie detector. The first thing the agent addressed was that you could not do a demonstration of the lie detector, because there are no consequences to the questions asked, so the physical reactions aren’t there.

There are three parts to the lie detector, or three parts to the screen at least. At the top is the record of the leads on fingers, which collect sweat. This has a stable base line, then a squirt when there is a reaction to a question.

There are two belts made of tubes which circle the chest and measure breathing. The lines for these look like hills when there is a change.

Finally there is a blood pressure cuff.

The examiner looks at three things: consistency, time line, and significance.

Is the subject’s response consistent? The same questions will be asked several times, in a random sequence. If the subject responds the same way to the question no matter when it is given, there is significance to the response.

What is the time line of the response? Does it come at an appropriate time with regard to the asking of the question? (Often the response will come a little before person actually speaks, because the person is anticipating lying, and that causes the physical response.)

Is the response significant? Is there enough of a change in the subject’s response to merit calling it a physical reaction?

If you volunteer to take a lie detector test, for example in applying for a job, and you test positive for a crime, they will prosecute you. In one case, an applicant for a job with the Border Patrol admitted to child porn during the exam and was arrested.

Who doesn’t test well?

• People who are not focused-- for example due to drugs and/or alcohol. If you aren’t paying attention to the questions, your body won’t react to them.
• People who can’t pay attention-- for example, those with ADD-- for the same reason.
• If there is an outside issue that is more important to the subject. For example, if a suspect is being interviewed about a house break-in but actually committed a murder, he won’t react to questions about the break-in because they are less important than the murder.

There are also a couple of medications that mess with results. And of course he wouldn’t tell us which ones!

The most important part of the lie detector exam, he said, is the interview with the subject and the ability to establish a rapport. If the suspect does test positive for the crime, he will then initiate a “direct, positive confrontation.” He won’t ask if the subject did it-- he will move forward saying that he did.

Then he turns to RPM: rationalization, projection, and minimization.

He will rationalize what the subject did. Anyone would have done that thing, for example. Of course, you take a guy who needs money, and you present him with the opportunity to steal something. That’s rationalization.

Then he projects the blame onto someone else. It was really the victim’s fault, for having all that expensive stuff and not having good security.

Finally he will minimize the seriousness of the crime. At least you didn’t kill anyone, right? All you did was steal some stuff. It’s just stuff. And now you need to own up to it so you can move forward.

This encourages the suspect to admit guilt.

He doesn’t discuss the legal penalties when minimizing-- that’s not his job and he can’t make those kind of statements. And he never tapes these interviews, because he wouldn’t want a jury to hear an FBI agent saying some of these things, because out of context they would sound inappropriate.

I feel like I understand the lie detector process a lot better now, and I’d feel comfortable putting at least part of this into a book. I’m already having a police character discuss the RPM because I think it’s fascinating and a good way to get a fictional criminal to confess.

FBI Citizen’s Academy Week 6 - Violent Crime

As always, any errors here are mine, not the FBI’s.

The evening began with some information about FBI hiring. Last year they hired 914 special agents and 550 analysts, with a total hiring of 1988, including all support personnel. Despite the economy and cutbacks they are planning to hire something close to that number this year.

New jobs are posted at fbi.gov on Tuesdays. Sadly, you can’t be older than 37 to start the special agent training program. That lets me out.

They also have an honors internship program for college students, who must have a 3.0 GPA and be enrolled full-time in college. The program runs from May-August in both headquarters and certain field offices, and gives students an overview of what the FBI does.

This week was the one I think is going to be most relevant to the writing of crime novels, because the agent who spoke to us was from the violent crime squad, which encompasses most of the kind of crimes we write about.

We began with a discussion of crime on the high seas, for which the FBI has sole jurisdiction. The most prevalent crimes are assault and sexual assault (primarily on cruise ships) though also investigate murder, suicide, and high-end theft cases.

They have an emergency response team (ERT), mostly comprised of former law enforcement personnel, that go out to investigate the crimes on board, usually once the ship has docked.

They also investigate cargo theft; the biggest hub for ocean-borne cargo theft is here in Miami, because the cargo is exported through the Port of Miami. In the past they have found stolen cargo including truckloads of wheelchairs, portable toilets, electronics, cell phones, TVs, and even rubber duckies.

The investigation of art theft also comes under the jurisdiction of the violent crime squad. “If it has been stolen, it comes through Miami,” the agent said-- not that the art was stolen here, but it passes through here on its way to the eventual buyer. The intrastate nature of the theft is what brings it under the FBI’s jurisdiction.

There is an art theft registry-- a database of stolen art that helps agents figure out if a piece of art has been stolen. These agents get a lotof detailed training on detecting fraud in art work. I think this is a really interesting area and might like to investigate this more and perhaps write something.

I do have an agent character in mind-- he appears in my forthcoming M/M romance Mi Amor, set on South Beach, and due out from Loose Id in early 2011. There’s a minor character in that book, a red-headed special agent named Angus Green, and something about him intrigues me. I’ve been very happy that the opportunity to attend the FBI Academy came up now, as I’m thinking about how Angus can spin off into his own book, or his own series.

Art theft is definitely a possibility, as is jewelry theft, which is another area the violent crime squad is involved with. Primarily this is crime against jewelry distributors; there is a big trade show in October and many distributors are targeted. The FBI has a task force that works with local departments on these crimes.

The violent crime squad also works on bank robberies, fugitive apprehensions, armored car robberies, and kidnappings/extortions-- though these are rare. There have been numerous armored car robberies in South Florida lately, and bank robberies are common. The criminals know that bank employees are trained to give up the money without a fight, so they are easy targets. But the statistics we were shown indicate that there’s relatively little money stolen in each case-- sometimes only a few thousand dollars. Maybe it’s low risk, but certainly low reward as well.

As an American citizen, if you go to certain countries (Mexico and Haiti among them) you are a target for kidnapping. The FBI gets involved in these cases. They work a lot of email extortion crimes-- sometimes the victim is kidnapped and then released, but threatened with additional violence if he doesn’t cooperate and pay.

They also have one squad which focuses on crimes against children, including the Innocent Images Squad, which looks at child porn.

Most crimes, the agent indicated, are solved by the evidence and forensics. He mentioned a device called a Shot-Spotter, which can detect where a bullet was shot from using triangulation. He also mentioned the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes, or NCAVC. This group provides behavioral-based support in investigations-- what I guess we would call profiling.

FBI Citizen's Academy Week 5

As always, any errors here are mine, not the FBI’s.

Last week, I got some extra information from one of my fellow students at the FBI academy. I wanted to know exactly which guns we shot the week before in our trip to the Dade County police firing range.

We shot the Glock 22, with 40 caliber ammunition.

The long-barrel gun was an H &K MP5, 10 millimeter, with a long barrel. It can be used in semi-automatic or full automatic mode, though we only shot in semi-automatic.

The shotgun was a Remington 12 gauge with a 14” barrel. The shorter barrel is important because it’s easier to conceal and to carry in and out of vehicles.

Week 5 was about counter-terrorism and legal issues.

Miami is one of the top 5 offices in the country size-wise, and the South Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in this office has 38 participating agencies and 159 full time personnel including FBI agents, analysts, and personnel on loan from partner agencies.

The FBI’s number one priority is protection of the US from terrorist attack, and the JTTF encompasses nine counter-terrorism squads called T1 – T9. T1 focuses on Al Qaeda, T3 on Hezbollah, T4 on threat response, and T5 on extra-territorial kidnappings & other events.

The state & local officers who work with the FBI on the JTTF get the same top secret clearance as Bureau agents, and get full access to the FBI facility and all databases. They also carry cases just like the Federal agents.

The FBI defines international terrorism as criminal violations intended to intimidate, coerce or influence.

Domestic terrorism comes from many places. The right wing, such as white supremacist groups; the left wing, such as Marxist or Leninists; and those groups focused on a single issue, such as eco-terrorists, anti-abortion activitsts, and animal rights activists.

After a break we discussed the legal issues the FBI faces, focusing on the 1st and 4th amendments. The FBI can’t target someone who is exercising his 1st amendment rights, such as freedom of speech. And the 4th amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure, requires the FBI to justify their case when getting search warrants.

An interesting term that arose was “curtilage,” which the agent defined as the area immediately around your property. This means that an outdoor area can be legally coupled with the property it surrounds, even though it’s not part of the structure. This is important when it comes to what you need a search warrant for. If an agent sees something in the yard, it may fall within the curtilage. Trash in a a bag next to the house, for example, would still be within the curtilage and the agent would need a warrant to search it.

Trash in a bag at the street, however, is outside the curtilage and can be seen as having been abandoned. Therefore the agent doesn’t need a warrant to search it. This is an interesting term and one I would like to explore further. I checked Wikipedia and curtilage has other uses, including with the definition of burglary.

FBI Citizen's Academy Week 2

FBI Citizen's Academy Week 2

These are my notes from the second week of the FBI Citizen's Academy. As always, these are my interpretations and should not be construed to represent any policies of the FBI.

A Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) spoke to us about computer intelligence—the FBI’s number 2 priority – protecting the national security of the US. The goal is to ensure that no outsiders get materials developed here.

Theirs is a regional counterintelligence effort; there are 9 such around the country.  There are six regional offices participating, in Tampa; Jacksonville; Miami; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Jackson, MS; and Mobile, AL. They also liaise with business and educational partners.

What it costs to get the information determines its priority. They want people who have placement and access to the information that they need.

There are two kinds of intelligence officers from foreign countries—legal officers and illegal officers. The legal ones are clearly attached to the offices of a foreign government, working in an embassy and supporting the clandestine activities of the illegal officers, who have no ostensible connection either to the foreign government’s offices, or often to the foreign country itself. He gave an example that Cuban illegal officers created fake identities based on the dead children of Mexican migrant workers. These children were born in the US of foreign parents who often were illegals or returned to their home countries.

The Cubans would research in California and Texas to find birth and death records of these children. They would create whole identities for their illegal officers around these records, and thus the agent would have no connection to Cuba at all—records would show he was born in the US of Mexican parents.

It’s hard to find these agents, because they don’t have any ostensible connection to Cuba and don’t associate with other Cubans. They keep their “escape documents” somewhere other than their house—passports, tickets etc. intended for only a one-time use, to escape if their identity is compromised.

FISA is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the FBI to collect information these illegal agents. The FBI may enter a suspect’s residence and copy his computer disks, for example. Then they use the information on those disks to track other agents, both legal and illegal.

The Cuban government often sends high-frequency radio messages to its agents after midnight. By discovering the frequency, the FBI can listen in on these messages and decrypt them.

The Cuban Intelligence Service is one of the top 5 intelligence services in the world, and 85% of their activity is directed toward us.  They collect information and then either use it themselves or broker it to other hostile countries for their own political advantage. The FBI has discovered Cuban agents at Boca Chica Naval Air Station, at Southcom, and in other sensitive positions.

“Intelligence is like cabbage at the grocery story—it’s only good for a few days.” This means that intelligence must be gathered continuously to be worthwhile. The FBI will be reluctant to take an intelligence case to trial because they would have to reveal everything they have and how they got it—and that would tip off the illegal agents to the FBI’s intelligence gathering methods.

My first night at the FBI Citizen's Academy

FBI Citizen’s Academy Session 1

On Thursday October 7, I began the 8-week FBI Citizen’s Academy. These are my notes from the first session. Caution: This is my own impression of what I learned, and does not in any way represent official ideas or positions of the FBI.

The Miami office covers Ft. Pierce to the Keys, as well as the Caribbean, South America and Mexico. It’s one of 56 field offices and over 400 satellite offices, along with many legats (legal attaches) at foreign embassies.

They handle domestic intelligence gathering and law enforcement of over 300 different violation classifications.

Their office is ground zero for health care fraud, close to $100 billion annually. No other region comes close; South Florida is responsible for more health care fraud than the rest of the country combined. There are a number of contributing reasons, including the large number of Medicare recipients and, unofficially, the presence of a large Cuban community. Allegedly 98% of those involved in health care fraud are Cubans, and there have been reports of money gained fraudulently going back to the island.

Operation Severed Artery investigated 11 infusion therapy clinics, who were paid $80 million in fraudulent claims. Three brothers set up these clinics providing fake treatments, and billing Medicare.

Terrorism is the FBI’s #1 threat; in South Florida that involves researching those who raise funds for terrorist organizations, and who use criminal activities to fund them.

There are six ASACs in the office—assistant special agents in charge. They handle corporate and securities fraud, bank and mortgage fraud, cyber crimes, crimes against children, and public corruption. There are two ASACs dedicated to health care fraud. They are also responsible for regional agencies in Ft. Pierce and Palm Beach.

We heard a presentation by an intelligence analyst—not an agent, and he doesn’t carry a gun. He researches statistics and gave a presentation on real estate fraud. He began by explaining that there are two types of real estate fraud, both involving lies or misrepresentations:

·         Fraud for housing – where someone uses fraudulent information to obtain a house where he or she lives

·         Fraud for profit—purchasing a house using fraudulent information, then flipping it

There are high returns in this area, with a low risk of being caught. Banks have been lax in their loan approvals because they knew they were just going to sell the loan forward.

One of the research tools is the SAR, suspicious activity report, provided by banks. The bank indicates on the SAR that the suspicious activity may revolve around real estate fraud. Florida is #1 in the highest amount of fraudulent loans.

He also discussed three other types of real estate fraud:

·         Foreclosure rescue/loan modification scams, where someone promises to help a homeowner out of a mortgage but ends up defrauding & taking the money.

·         Builder bailouts—where a builder trying to reduce an inventory of unsold property offers off-the-books incentives to buyers, such as making a year’s worth of mortgage payments, or adding a car or other property to the deal. These additional incentives are never disclosed to the mortage lender.

·         Mortgage Ponzi schemes—someone collects money to be invested in mortgages but never does, and uses the cash from new customers to pay returns to the first ones.

There are several emerging threats:

·         Reverse mortgage loans (HECM) – appraising a house at a higher value but not disclosing that to the elderly subject. Then the scammer takes the difference between the appraised value and the reverse mortgage.

·         Insurance fraud – Distressed homeowners destroying their homes in order to cash in on insurance.

·         Deed forgery – filing a false mortgage satisfaction, then selling the property as if it was unencumbered, or taking a new mortgage.

·         Property flopping – A real estate broker finds a buyer for distressed property. Then he convinces the bank to sell the property to a straw buyer for less than the eventual buyer is willing to pay. Then he flips the property to the eventual buyer at the higher price.

We have a perfect storm of conditions leading to mortgage fraud:

·         Unemployment rising

·         Property values dropping

·         High rate of foreclosure

They have a number of initiatives to fight these problems:

·         Undercover operations

·         A mortgage fraud task force in Miami & Palm Beach

·         Suspicious Activity Reports

·         Mortgage fraud intelligence initiatives, where they recruit agents, brokers etc. to provide intel.

Operation Stolen Dreams netted 125 criminals, 485 arrests, $2-3 billion in estimated losses. $10 million was seized, along with $196 million in property.

 

Getting Books

One of the coolest parts of writing a book is that day when you first get the copy of the finished book.

About two weeks ago, I got some covers-- just flat sheets of paper with the front and back covers. That was really neat, because I got to see the back of the book for the first time.

Then last week, the first copies showed up in my mailbox. The page proofs I looked at didn't have the dedication or acknowledgements, so that was the first thing I turned to. Fortunately it was all good.

I'm still at that honeymoon stage when I haven't found anything wrong yet-- haven't discovered any typos, misprints, etc. Ah, but honeymoons always end!

Mahu Surfer Cover Art

I just got the cover art for the new book, Mahu Surfer, which will be coming out from Alyson in August, 2007.

I think it's cool, though I wish they had been able to find a way to incorporate the Mahu logo into the cover. After all, I'm trying to develop a brand, and the logo is part of the brand identity.

James Kirkwood

Vicki Van Lieu was my best friend as a teenager. We used to hang out after school and write stories, and it's through Vicki that I discovered a writer who was very influential in my development. Vicki's mother had a sleek black cat named Rajah, and Vicki and Rajah had a love-hate relationship. So when Vicki stumbled on a book called P.S. Your Cat is Dead, she picked it up immediately.

She lent it to me later, and I fell in love with it. It's the story of a struggling actor whose girlfriend has left him, and it's New Year's Eve and he's all alone. Oh, and p.s., his cat is dead.

Then a burglar breaks into his apartment. Could things get any worse? Well, how about if the burglar was gay, and awoke something dormant inside our hero?

I haven't read the book in years, though I probably should again, just to see if it stands up. But it was really meaningful to me back then, when my own sexuality was more than dormant, and I'm not sure it would have the same impact now.

However, it drove me to read everything James Kirkwood had written. And then I discovered he was the co-author of the Broadway smash A Chorus Line, which opened on Broadway in 1975, the year I graduated from high school. He ended up sharing a Pulitzer and a Tony for his work.

I quickly read everything of Kirkwood's that I could get my hands on, and the homoeroticism of his work, which was very understated, spoke to me in a big way. Like A Separate Peace, the John Knowles novel that sparked the desire to write in me, Kirkwood's work came at a time when I needed to read it, and I'll be forever grateful.

Gay Guy/Weak Guy

Though I've pretty much given up on MTV's Real World (I'm just too old for all that adolescent posturing) I'm still a fan of The Real World/Road Rules Challenge. And I'm fascinated by something that Shane, the only openly gay contestant on this season's challenge, said last week.

He and his female partner had to cross this rope strung high across the water from opposite sides, cross over each other, and then continue to the other side. Not something I could do in a million years.

Shane couldn't do it either--he fell to the water below. He was clearly upset with his performance and said, "Don't mind being the gay guy. Don't want to be the weak guy."

It struck me as something that Kimo would say-- and something lots of out gay men would probably say too. We've accepted our sexuality, but don't want that to imply that we're somehow weaker than everybody else.

As a matter of fact, it's probably something Kimo will say at some point in the future. Thanks for the line, Shane.

ThrillerFest

Now that I've been home from ThrillerFest for a few days, I've had a chance to think about it and process what I learned. I typed up all my notes, which were mostly on the technical panels, and I certainly feel that I learned a few things from those panels. I could have spent a whole day listening to Nick Hughes, and I'd love to get him to Sleuthfest.

First of all, if I closed my eyes it sounded like Sean Connery was talking to me-- and I could listen to him forever. But more than that, Nick had so many interesting things to talk about-- his experiences in the French Foreign Legion, work as a bodyguard, and how to survive a street fight.

The last stuff was the most relevant to my writing. I have Kimo volunteering at a gay & lesbian teen center on Waikiki, and I want him to be teaching a once-a-week course on self-esteem and self-defense. How to stand up to bullies, for example, and how to feel good enough about yourself that you can.

I loved the Arizona Biltmore, and everyone I met was very friendly. On the first day, I jumped into a caravan that went to Poisoned Pen, a bookstore in downtown Phoenix, and then out to the Scottsdale Gun Club. It was Zoe Sharp's birthday, and she wanted to shoot a submachine gun.

The rest of us got to watch her, and shoot a variety of weapons, including a 9 mm and a .357 magnum. I understood why my father's shooting jacket has a padded shoulder-- the semi-automatic rifle I fired had a real kick.

I also realized more clearly the difference between a thriller and a mystery. I don't read that many true thrillers; I hardly recognized any of the names on the panels, and those I did recognize I knew from reading mysteries and attending mystery conferences.

ThrillerFest was very well-run, though I was a bit disappointed that it was so successful-- I had been hoping for a smaller conference where there would be more opportunity to really get to know people, as I did in Toronto. Would I go back? I don't know. It will be in New York next summer, and a lot depends on where else I want to go or need to go, and how willing Marc is to let me go!

Lowered Expectations

OK, I never thought Mahu was going to be a best-seller, or set the world on fire. I hoped it would find an audience, and that readers would like the book.

But I did hope for more than I got, so I'm learning to lower my expectations.

The first person I met who'd read Mahu, outside of my close friends, told me that she was a reader for Insight Out Books, that she'd loved the book and recommended it. So I kept waiting to hear from Haworth, and scanning the Insight Out catalogs that came in. I finally accepted that they had just chosen not to include Mahu in their offerings.

I was hoping to get a couple of decent reviews. Certainly I'd love the New York Times, but I knew that it could only happen by a fluke. I did think I was more realistic in getting a couple of reviews in mainstream publications, particularly my hometown newspapers.

Didn't happen. I greatly appreciate the reviews that Mahu got, which were generally quite positive, but they came from GLBT publications and websites in places like Connecticut and Minnesota. I didn't get into any of the big magazines like Out or The Advocate, and I didn't get into any newspapers in big cities.

The biggest disappointment was not making the top five finalists for a Lammy award. I thought I knew most of my competition and I was sure Mahu would stack up against them. But I didn't make it. Several people told me they thought Mahu belonged there, and that it was a symptom of how biased and/or out of touch the judges were.

I was hoping to get invited somewhere-- to speak at a conference or workshop, or visit a college. Hasn't happened yet-- but it might still, though I'm not expecting anything.

So I'm trying to be grateful for what I've gotten. Some positive reviews. Good word-of-mouth feedback. The chance to sit on a couple of panels at mystery conferences. Sales that look like they will top the publisher's expectations (though my royalties haven't yet paid back the money I've spent promoting, and probably never will.)

I've had a book published by a reputable publisher, and it opened doors for the sequel to come out in Spring 2007 (from Alyson Books) and for me to edit a collection of essays, Paws & Reflect, about gay men and their dogs. That will also be out from Alyson, in November, 2006. I now have a new agent, and I've met a lot of great writers online and through my travels.

I think any new author doesn't really know what to expect, and we should all be grateful for whatever comes out way. Now that I've gotten over my initial disappointments, I think I can be.

Pride Write

When I was at Stonewall Pride yesterday, Eston Dunn (aka E. Robert Dunn, author of the Echelon's End science fiction series) invited me to join a group of other gay authors at a Borders event later in the afternoon.

I was hot and sweaty and tired and knew Marc was waiting for me at home. But I agreed to go anyway (after letting Marc know I'd be late.) And I'm glad I did.

I didn't sell a single book, and there wasn't much of a crowd. But I did get to chat a bit with Richelle, the customer relations manager. I discovered that Borders has so far sold 38 of the 50 copies they ordered for my original reading back in September. At the reading, I sold 24 copies, leaving 26 behind. So another 14 copies have sold since then.

I think that's pretty good. Most stores would have sent back all or most of the unsold copies right after the reading. I did sign the rest of the books, and Richelle gave us all some little "autographed by the author" stickers to put on the books.

I spoke to her about Paws & Reflect in the fall, and how I hoped to do some publicity with Andy Zeffer and Jay Quinn, and let her know that the new Mahu book will be out next spring. And I also mentioned that I'm hoping to get Tony Bidulka to come to Florida, and if she sets up a reading for him I will do my best to draw out an audience.

So I thought that was a pretty productive event, all in all.

Stonewall Pride

Today I spent a couple of hours at the Stonewall Pride Parade and festival in Fort Lauderdale. Andy Zeffer was kind enough to coordinate a table for gay authors uner the tent of his publication, Express Gay News. He and I were joined by Eston Dunn and Richard Blanco.

Our mantra was "Gay Books by Gay Authors" and "Sexy Summer Reading." When people came up, we pointed to Mahu as gay mystery, Eston's book as gay sci-fi, and Andy's book as gay Hollywood. Richard's was gay poetry-- though there wasn't that much gay about it.

I only sold two books, though Eston and Andy did much better. But I had fun hanging out at Pride and getting my name out there. Andy handed out a ton of postcards for us, and EGN advertised the event for us and made up a great poster than ran the length of the table. So there was a lot of visibility.

I met several people who'd already read the book, and I even saw a guy wearing my Mahu t-shirt. I'm still trying to figure out where he got it-- he must have bought it online. He was another walking billboard for me!

I saw so many funny, funny t-shirts out there, and was motivated again to try and take the rainbow surfboard graphic and turn it into a money maker on t-shirts. My favorite slogans were "Hi, You'll Do," and "Stop that man! I want to get off."

My high school speech teacher also showed up to say hello-- which was wild. I hadn't seen him in 31 years, though he looked an awful lot like the way I remembered.

So the message of this post is that you have to take advantage of any opportunities you have to get your name out there and sell books-- and any time hundreds of gay men and women (young, old, and in between; handsome, hideous and in between as well) see your name and the name of your book, it's got to be a good thing.

Glad Day in Toronto

While I was in Toronto, I also had the chance to visit Glad Day Books, which was a huge (by my standards, certainly) gay and lesbian bookstore. My internet friend Pat Brown (her gay mystery L.A. Heat is due out from Alyson any day now, and it's terrific) had arranged for a visit by herself, Tony Bidulka and me. Pat was sick that day and couldn't join us, but Tony graciously agreed to go along with me, even though he'd been there the day before.

Glad Day had so much stock I was just overwhelmed. I met the clerk and the manager, John, and chatted a little-- but honestly, I was too into checking out the stock to spend too much time talking! I noticed they had all four books I'm in at the moment-- Alyson's My First Time 2 and Dorm Porn (in which I have a piece, but under a pseudonym) as well as Mahu and the new Cleis anthology, Cowboys: Gay Erotic Stories.

It was fun to go around and talk to the stores, and now that I've done it I think I'll feel better about doing it in other cities. I should certainly get over to the couple of stores we have in South Florida, even though they don't have that much stock. I'll have to work on that this summer!

Hand-Selling

Hand-selling is one of the most important parts of the whole bookselling process. A bookstore manager or sales clerk who likes a book, or knows the store's stock, can make recommendations to customers. If you as an author get to know the bookstore's staff, they can help get your books into the hands of customers.

When I was in Toronto for Bloody Words, I went to two terrific gay bookstores: Not the Rosedale Library and Glad Day. At the first, I just walked in off the street and asked to speak to the manager. I had to identify myself as an author-- not some complaining customer. Then the manager and I had a nice chat about gay books, and I told him a little about myself.

And then he hand-sold me a couple of books-- ones that his customers really seemed to like, or so he said. I just finished reading Joey Comeau's Lockpick Pornography, which I bought because the manager thought highly of it and said the store could barely keep it in stock. He knew the author's back story, too-- about how he'd started publishing online to earn enough money for college.

I was hooked. I bought the book, which I liked-- it's a very interesting riff on gender, in particular, wrapped around a sexy, funny story. I hope this manager will be pushing Mahu the same way!

Bloody Words

I just returned from Bloody Words, a mystery writer's conference in Toronto. I think it's important to attend as many as this kind of event as you can afford when you're trying to build an audience for your book. I haven't really sold a lot of copies at events like this-- one at Bouchercon, one at Sleuthfest and one at BW. But I know I'm building my name recognition.

I also post on several list serves, such as DorothyL and Murder Must Advertise. Several people came up to me at BW and said that they recognized my name from DorothyL and wanted to say hello. It was nice to meet them, and to connect a face to some of the names I've seen online.

This morning, I made a post to DorothyL about the conference-- how well run it was, and all the people I'd met. That post served to inform the online community about the con, as well as to give me a chance to get my name out again.

Everyone I've spoken to agrees-- it's a lot of work to promote your book. But if, like me, you're in this for the long haul-- I want to make a career out of writing-- I consider it an investment in my future. And along the way, I'm having fun at conferences. I'm learning from panel discussions and from posts about writing, marketing, and mysteries. Sure, I'm not spending as much time writing as I should-- but at least this sort of thing is a lot more productive than computer solitaire!

Sleuthfest

I'm finally recovering from Sleuthfest, the mystery writers' conference sponsored by our local chapter of the Mystery Writers of America. I was one of the volunteer organizers, so since January I've been collecting names of people who wanted to have appointments with agents & editors, then organizing those appointments. I spent Friday and Saturday afternoon at the center of barely controlled chaos, as writers went in and out for their 10-minute appointments.

Sometimes we were ahead, and sometimes behind. It's a mystery how it all worked out, but everyone seemed happy--except for one guy. Oh, well, you can't please everyone.

Writers' conferences are great places for name recognition and networking. I think I was laying the groundwork this winter. A couple hundred other writers and I exchanged emails, and then I met most of them face to face, even if it was only for a minute or two.

I didn't sell as many books as the bookseller or I expected, but I think that's because my panels (I moderated one and spoke on one) took place on Friday morning, before I'd had the chance to meet all those writers and impress them with my charming personality. Next year, I'll ask for a Saturday panel rather than one on Friday.

But I think this is like making posts on DorothyL, or the PublishedGayAuthors list serve-- it's about hitting your potential audience with your name over and over again. And I did sell books to people who had met me, or who wanted a gift for a gay friend or relative.

Hopefully this increased name recognition will start to pay off with the next book, Paws & Reflect-- the anthology about gay men and dogs that's coming out from Alyson in September.

The Sleuthfest Raffle

I've been volunteering to help my local chapter of the Mystery Writers of America with Sleuthfest, the mystery writers' conference we put on every March. This year's runs from March 2-5, and one of the features is a raffle for items donated by authors.

During the conference, you buy raffle tickets from one of the volunteers (usually women wearing pink boas) and then deposit your tickets in front of the items you want. The more you want something, the more tickets you drop in.

At the cocktail party on Saturday night, someone draws the winners for each prize. We've had some great ones-- trips and dinners as well as autographed books. MWA members were asked to donate, so I came up with the idea of a Hawaii-themed basket of goodies.

I had fun shopping for the stuff-- a platter, glasses and mugs; a bag of Kona coffee and one of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, as well as assorted leis and a ball cap patterned with blue hibiscus flowers. I threw in one of my Mahu post-it note pads as well as, of course, an autographed copy of Mahu.

This is just another promotional expense, as well as a charitable donation. Everybody who walks by the raffle items will see my name and my book's name. This is why I volunteered, too; to get my name out there.

Everyone who registers for Sleuthfest is eligible for a ten-minute pitch session with one of the agents or editors who are attending the conference, and I'm coordinating the scheduling of these appointments. A couple hundred people have been getting emails from me, and will meet me in person when they show up for their appointments.

I know from my own experience that I've bought books by authors I've met at conferences, especially people who've been nice to me. So I'm doing my best to be nice to everyone-- including putting together a fun basket of Hawaiian stuff for the raffle.

The Reader's Group

Tonight I had a really great experience. The GLBT book group at the Barnes & Noble in Fort Lauderdale read Mahu, and invited me to join them to discuss the book. The seven folks who were there had all read the book and liked it, and I had the chance to talk about it with them-- my inspiration, my plans for the series, and so on. It was so cool to hear the things that they liked-- the Hawaiian atmosphere, Kimo's relationships with his family, the struggles he goes through as a gay man working in a macho environment.

It was also very interesting to me to react to their comments-- to try and enhance their experience of the book with some background on how it came to be.

Thanks so much to the facilitators of the group-- John Spero, who has been such a supporter, and Leigh Rosenthal, who I went to college with so many years ago. The group was such a great experience that I hope to join them and read with them for a while.

Amazon Programs

I've signed up for two new marketing efforts at Amazon.com. The first is their Amazon Connect program, which allows authors to connect with readers directly. I make blog posts on the Amazon site, which are then displayed to customers who search for my books. Here's what the Mahu page looks like.

The second is Amazon Shorts, which allows me to sell short stories bsed on Kimo's further adventures. I've written about a dozen of these stories, and hope to collect them someday in an anthology-- but for now I think it will be an interesting way for people who've read Mahu to see what Kimo is up to now.

Publishing Stories

One of the ways I'm trying to promote Mahu is to get some of the short stories I've written about Kimo published. I've written some non-fiction which is around on the web, and I've always attached a tagline about the novel, but I think that giving people a taste of my fiction may make them want to read the book.

At this point, I've written about a dozen Kimo stories. Most of them are straightforward mysteries, always with a gay twist, and a couple are erotica with a mystery twist. (Why does that big, sexy guy look so unhappy? Let's get into his shorts and find out!) So far I haven't been very successful. Both Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock have turned stories down without comment, and a story I wrote for the last MWA anthology wasn't selected.

But my spooky story, Refuge, is still up at Blithe House Quarterly. In it, Kimo and his friend Gunter head off to the Big Island for weekend camping and run into the spirit of a gay ghost. And I've just won second place in a "Bad Santa" contest at Mysterical-e, an onling mystery magazine. The story, "Christmas in Honolulu" takes Kimo up into the hills above Manoa (home of the University of Hawaii's main campus) to figure out who killed a man in a Santa hat.

Does this work? Time will tell. In the meantime, I'm getting my name out there and giving Kimo a little more exposure.

Hurricane Wilma

No matter how much you plan, there are some things you just can't anticipate. Who knew a late-season category 1 or 2 storm would sweep across the state of Florida, from west to east (most go from east to west) and cause so much damage and devastation? I certainly didn't.

Wilma forced me to cancel two events-- a reading at the Stonewall Library, the gay and lesbian library in Fort Lauderdale, and a signing at Murder on the Beach, a small mystery bookstore in Delray Beach. In addition, it caused the Broward County Library to cancel publication of its monthly newsletter for November-- which was advertising my reading on November 30 at the South Regional Library.

That event, where I shared the podium with fellow mystery writers Joe Moore and Lynn Sholes, authors of The Grail Conspiracy, came off nicely, but the only audience were BCC students who were there for extra credit in their classes. The newsletter may have brought additional library patrons in.

New York, New York

When I left New York in 1986 to move to Florida, I knew I'd go back some day as a published author. And I did, in November.

The seeds for this trip started nearly seven years ago, when I attended a gay & lesbian writers' conference in Washington, DC called Behind Our Masks. While there I made a number of contacts that have been very fruitful. I met Dan Jaffe, a talented writer whose background is similar to mine in many ways, and we became friends. When Dan edited an issue of Blithe House Quarterly, the online gay literary magazine, he selected a story of mine, "Refuge." And then he was kind enough to provide a blurb for the jacket of Mahu.

I also read a shortened version of "Refuge" at an open mic reading towards the end of the conference, and that made an impression on Carol Rosenfeld, a New York-based writer and attorney who is involved with the Publishing Triangle, an association of gay men and lesbians in the publishing business, and with Out Professionals, a gay and lesbian networking group.

Fast forward many years. This summer, at Saints & Sinners, I met Carol again, and she remembered that story, and was kind enough to give Mahu a good review, as an advance reader for Insight Out Books, the gay & lesbian book club. She also said she'd be willing to help me organize an event in NYC.

Fast forward again to November 2005, when I gave a reading and discussion at the gay and lesbian community center in Chelsea. Only four people showed up, but I did sell two books-- a 50% conversion rate!

I learned from this experience that I have to be very aggressive at publicity for every event, even those organized by others. I assumed that the sponsorship of several different organizations, including GOAL, the organization of gay and lesbian police officers, would draw a crowd. I did send out some press releases and get into some events calendars, but as a first-time author with a largely unreviewed book, it was hard to get any additional publicity.

Even so, I thought the event went well and I enjoyed having dinner with Carol afterward. My event on Saturday, though, was a much bigger success, mostly because I leveraged my personal mailing list to get my friends to show up. About twenty people came to a reading on Saturday night at Partners in Crime, a charming little mystery bookstore on Greenwich Avenue in the Village. The store provided a lovely space at the back, with chairs and a comfy sofa, and a fabulous poster in the window advertising the reading.

The event organizer, Chandra, did a terrific job of getting the books and poster in place, and told me that the day after the reading she'd sold two books based on the poster.

Location also mattered-- the event at the Center was in a fourth-floor room,up two flights at the back of the building, far west in Chelsea. Partners in Crime has a good location in the heart of the Village, with lots of foot traffic.

Would I go back to New York again? Absolutely-- but with lots more advance planning!