William Harmening

I was born in March 1959 (Aries), and was raised and schooled in a small farm community in central Illinois. I began writing in the 5th grade, and in that same year my essay “First Time Out,” about my first fishing trip, was selected for inclusion in a national anthology. I haven't stopped writing since. After a stint in the U.S. Army in the 1970s (Military Intelligence), I used my G.I. bill to attend college, and eventually obtained an M.A. in Psychology from Sangamon State University, now the University of Illinois at Springfield. I became a law enforcement officer, and after many years as a deputy sheriff in Menard County (IL), I moved up to a state level law enforcement position, and eventually became a Deputy Chief of Investigations for the Illinois Attorney General's Office, where I founded the State of Illinois' first high-tech crimes task force and computer forensics lab. I am now finishing out my career as the Chief Special Agent for the Illinois Securities Dept., where I've been commanding a cadre of investigators specializing in investment fraud since 2001. I'm a licensed polygraph examiner, and also certified in forensic hypnosis. In addition to my adjunct teaching, I am also working on a PhD in International Psychology at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. I continue to live in the same small town where I grew up, a town I've immortalized in one of my books. I have four adult kids, two beautiful little grandkids, 10 beautiful saltwater fish in a 150-gallon aquarium, and the two cutest Shih Tzus you've ever seen!

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The picture of the steps? Those are the steps immortalized in "The Exorcists!" At the end of the movie when the priest is thrown from the house and down the steps. The actual house is at the top, but not close enough to the steps for that to have actually happened. The steps are in Georgetown (Washington D.C.) just a block off the river.