Q. What was the inspiration for Sweet Mary? As a two time Pulitzer Prize winner, did you find the transition from journalism to writing a novel difficult? What was most challenging about writing Sweet Mary?

A. Sweet Mary was inspired by the true-life story of a suburban mom who was a friend of a friend of mine. She was an upstanding citizen and a hardworking saleswoman whose name happened to sound like that of a fugitive drug trafficker. One day in 2003, the feds came to her door—not far from my house at the time—and took her away in shackles, in front of her young son. It took her a couple of weeks or so to prove they had arrested the wrong woman. Something about her story sparked a series of questions: What if a wrongly arrested woman can’t prove her innocence? What if she loses her job, home, reputation, her life as she knows it? How far would she go to get her life back?

I took the real-life Mary, whose name is Virginia Garcia, out for a coffee and riffed about all these things. No, she wouldn’t go out and find the fugitive drug dealer, she said. Then her eyes lit up with a tinge of mischief: “But I’d love to read the book or watch the movie.”

Days later, Sweet Mary, the character, was born. I wrote the story first as a screenplay because, at the time, I was experimenting with the form. As a journalist, I found the venture into the fictional world— first as a screenwriter, then as a novelist—quite daunting. I kept reaching for my notebook in hopes of finding a great quote or some colorful detail. I think this was the most challenging thing for me, to know that I was riding the bike without training wheels.

Q. Mary Guevara is of Cuban descent, a trait that the two of you share. Were any of the childhood experiences that Mary had similar to your own? Did you have a hard time adjusting from life in Cuba to life in the United States?

A. I came from Cuba when I was ten months old but was raised in Hialeah by exiled parents. Hialeah is the city with one of the largest concentrations of Cuban exiles in the country. So I grew up Cuban in America, so to speak. I didn’t learn to speak English until the first grade and when I did, I fell in love with the language. I have a special place in my heart for my first grade teacher, the 20-something, mini-skirt-wearing, flip-do sporting, hip chick of the ’60s who taught me—the only Cuban kid in class—to speak English. She made special flash cards for me. She visited my parents. Decades later, when we reunited, she told me she believes she became a teacher just to teach me, for she only taught that year. Thanks to her, I felt very little culture clash—instead, I experienced this love of a new language and an American pride that is still with me today.

I set part of Mary’s story in that world of old Hialeah because I wanted to draw from a universe I remember with great cariño, affection. It’s not the Hialeah of today, but the one that exists in technicolor, in my memories.

Q. You chose to have Miami serve as the backdrop for the story. Why? Do you think Sweet Mary could have taken place anywhere else or is Miami the best and only place it could be?

A. This story could have taken place just about anywhere, but I felt it was important that I set it in a universe I knew first-hand. That said, I did create a fictional neighborhood for “bad Mary”—of course, by the time I got to that part of the story, I felt a little more comfortable in the fictional terrain.

Q. How did you come to create and develop the characters that we meet in Sweet Mary? Are any of them based upon people you know?

A. The characters just showed up. I never believed this could happen, that characters can just materialize the way writers claim they do. I did model the swim instructor cameo after the guy who taught me to swim at Walker Park in Hialeah, circa 1966. Otherwise, there are simply minor threads of characters I’ve known in my life.

Q. If you had to place yourself in the book, who would you be? The courageous and daring Mary? Gina, the trusty sidekick? Perhaps the “evil” Maria Guevara Portilla?

A. Mary, hands down. That’s why I created her. I wanted to live vicariously through this bold, hot woman. She’s driven, sexy, wears gorgeous shoes, and packs heat.

Q. You chose to incorporate a “script style” setting to most of the scenes in the book; that is, you give a short description of each scene in the book as it begins. It is a unique element for a novel. Why did you decide to do it?

A. I wrote a version of this story first as a screenplay. When I began to write the novel, I realized there were parts of the script format that felt so appropriate to my protagonist’s experience. There comes a time, early in the story, when she feels so detached from the chaos of her life that she becomes a kind of witness to it, an out-of-body observer. This “flash” moment comes when they snap her jailhouse mug shot. This is the point when I brought in the script-format scene headings, to underscore this idea that, on some level, Mary (the old, good-girl Mary) was both an observer and protagonist of her own life.

Q. At one point Mary claims that when she was younger, she wanted to be a detective. Did you ever have any sleuthing aspirations? Or was being a writer always your calling?

A. I did. My favorite stories have always involved procedurals of some kind. As a writer, I love to nail down an intriguing story. But I’m not sure I have the patience for long stakeouts or the ability to blend in to a range of scenarios.

Q. What do you want readers to take away from Sweet Mary?

A. The sense that they’ve been on a great summer road trip, with a few detours through some fateful little alleys.

Q. What is one piece of advice you have for aspiring writers?

A. Write, write, write. Write the stories you feel, the ones you need to explore. And write what you believe. Don’t write what you think you’re supposed to write or what you think the market wants. For a writer, it all starts with a good story, one you believe in so strongly that you can tell it again and again.

Q. What is next for you? Will we be hearing from Mary again?

A. Yes, Mary Guevara will make a reappearance in my second novel, which I’m presently writing. Also, Sweet Mary is in development for a TV series for a major cable network. We partnered with some terrific producers and studio. I’m not allowed to say much more than that right now, but I will say that I’m over the moon about the talent involved and the way it came together. It’s good feng shui all around!