With over 20 years of criminology experience, Dr David Craig will share his knowledge at WriteFest when he presents his workshop Can you tell if someone is lying? What if your life depended on it?

As part of David Craig’s doctoral research, he interviewed covert operatives and those who led prosecutions against criminals caught by undercover tactics in undercover programs in Australia, the United States, Canada, the UK and the Netherlands. He now runs a consultancy for Australian and overseas agencies on covert operations, which include surveillance, informant and undercover operations.

Knowing the difference between the truth and lies can be a matter of life and death in undercover operations, and this led David to write Lie Catcher; Become a Human Lie Detector in Under 60 Minutes (Big Sky Publishing).

His workshop has two parts:
Dirty Tricks – the Nature of Undercover Operations provides a gritty insight into undercover operations; the risks, the reality and how they net criminals. It also provides an insight into the mind of covert operatives and the criminals caught by undercover tricks.

The Truth About Lying discusses the role and nature of lies in society from little white lies to outright deceit. Importantly the session will focus upon how to detect when people tell you a porky, why they did, perhaps why sometimes you necessarily do too.

This workshop may assist writers in developing deceitful characters with relevant emotional tell-tale signs of lying and deceit, and the development of shady characters, truth seekers and investigators. The session should also assist writers to formulate story lines involving the murky world of undercover police and criminals.

Booking forms for WriteFest 2012 will soon be available so keep Saturday 19th May free to catch Dr David Craig’s workshop. Check out our WriteFest 2012 pages for information on our growing program.