Twenty-five years into teaching inside Michigan and Oklahoma prisons, Merle Davenport has access to rare, firsthand insight into criminal behavior and the psychology that drives it. Now, he’s using that experience to help authors, especially thriller writers, to create richer, more believable villains.
Davenport will share this knowledge with Northeast Florida Sisters in Crime at their monthly meeting at 10:15 p.m. Saturday, March 7.
Drawing on both academic research and his firsthand experience with incarcerated individuals, Davenport offers a research-based framework for building multidimensional villains. His approach goes beyond stereotypes, focusing on the motivations, thought patterns and traits that shape real-world criminal behavior.
Davenport wrote “Echoes of the Criminal Mind,” which distills the psychology of real-life offenders into 10 key traits that drive criminal thinking. For the past five years, he has served as president of the Tulsa NightWriters, whose motto is “Writers helping writers be better writers.”
Northeast Florida Sisters in Crime, a chapter of the national organization, welcomes men and women who are interested in learning more about writing, promoting and enjoying crime fiction.
Attendance is Zoom-only. Register for the Zoom link at NEFloridaSistersinCrime.org.
For more information, contact floridasistersincrime@gmail.com.
