On Thursday, 24 June, a meeting was held at the Municipal Public Library in Bolesławiec with Krzysztof Petek, an author and journalist. “They call me a writer; I accept that with humility,” Petek said. “My books are not required reading, and let it stay that way. Nevertheless, I have more than 130,000 regular readers in Poland. And if there are people among you who do not like reading, I dare say that it is only because you have not yet found the books that are right for you.
For years, Krzysztof Petek has organized survival schools and survival expeditions. “I teach survival techniques and psychology, how to act in critical situations, and self-defense,” he stressed. “Specialists repeat: the worse, the better. The more difficult the conditions during training, the better prepared we are to act in real-life situations.
From 1997 to 2000, Petek conducted training organized by the Foundation for Combating Youth Crime. “I trained twelve- to fourteen-year-old intelligence agents. I taught them to lie, cheat and pretend to be someone else,” the writer recounted. “Then six 16-year-olds infiltrated several of the most dangerous criminal environments. For a few days, they became members of gangs, criminal groups, sects and subcultures. Their task was to search for missing people and look for information; they were to reach places where police informants had no access.
All of this can be read about in the books from the “Operation Hydra” series. “That is my profession: I write about interesting things. Things happen around us that are so extraordinary that it is enough to collect and describe them. I do not like making things up. I do not write about a guy who flies on a crooked broom, because that bores me,” Krzysztof Petek admitted.
The author of the “Settling Scores with Adventure” series also offered some advice to young aspiring writers: “Do not wait for inspiration; professionals do not wait for inspiration, but for an assignment. And if you have something to say to people, do it in such a way that they will want to read it.
The event was financed as part of the Discussion Clubs for Books project.
(GA information)