Aug 25, 2009

Interview With Mary-Ann Tirone Smith and Jere Smith

I reviewed Dirty Water: A Red Sox Mystery by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith and Jere Smith earlier this month.

But the Smiths were kind enough to take time out of their busy schedules to answer a few questions by email.

1. What first spawned the idea to use real-life people as characters in your mystery novel, Dirty Water: A Red Sox Mystery?

Jere: We thought about using fictional Red Sox players, to avoid the book quickly becoming obsolete, since players change teams so often these days. But then we realized how lame that would sound. We decided to just make the book take place in the year we were writing it. The fact that they ended up winning that year's World Series kind of justified our idea. Suddenly we had a book about a world champion team--one that had less written about it than the 2004 team, which broke the 86-year drought.

2. How difficult was it to include the Red Sox players in the novel? Was there a particular process you had to go through to use their names?

Mary-Ann: The Red Sox players are in the public domain. You may fictionalize people with name recognition as long as you don't slander them. Something we'd never do, naturally, as the Red Sox are our heroes.

3. You co-wrote this novel with your son. Did you share the writing duties or did one of you play more of a role than the other in writing each draft?

Mary-Ann: First, we brain-stormed a plot. We wanted to write about a real crime that was connected with Major League Baseball and came upon the story of the Arocha Pipeline, the name for a route used to smuggle ballplayers out of Cuba and into the United States. This is called human trafficking for profit, a crime dangerous to the players which puts Coast Guardsmen and FBI agents in grave danger. Once we had that down, we worked on how to mesh that plot with the 2007 Red Sox season. I wrote a majority of the mystery section, Jere wrote most of the blog, and then we revised each other's work, back and forth until we both agreed on every line of the final draft. (Same way we did this Q & A.)

4. Could you describe your experience writing a novel with writing memoir? How were they similar and how were they different?

Mary-Ann: In writing a novel, the writer makes up plot and fictional characters out of thin air even though the basis for either might be an actual event or an actual person. Our DIRTY WATER Red Sox discovered an infant in the clubhouse at Fenway. The actual players did not. A memoir is simply the writer's memory of people and events in his/her life.

If you want to hear more from Jere and Mary-Ann Smith, check out my D.C. Literature Examiner page.

Check out Jere's Blog A Red Sox Fan From Pinstripe Territory and the book's blog, Dirty Water: A Red Sox Mystery.



13 comments:

Sandy Nawrot said...

I've been spreading the word around about this one to all my Red Sox-obsessed friends! Great interview!

Serena said...

Sandy: I hope they run out and buy the book. Also, don't forget the second half of the interview at Examiner.com. I think the link is live now!

Anna said...

I'm reading the book right now and am enjoying it. I'm looking forward to the book club discussion on Saturday. This is a great interview...you asked the questions I would have asked. Now I'm going to check out the rest of it!

--Anna
Diary of an Eccentric

Unknown said...

Great interview! I have never heard of these authors before so will go and check them out now. Also, thanks for stopping by my blog today and for nominating me for BBAW - that was just so sweet of you and I'm really excited about it. Thank you :)

Serena said...

Anna: I cannot wait to see what the club has to say about the book.

Book Chick City: I'm glad you liked the interview. I hope you catch part 2 on my Examiner.com page. Not a problem about the BBAW nomination. I really love your blog.

Susan Helene Gottfried said...

I've got this up at Win a Book for you. Links to both halves, in fact. I couldn't resist!

bermudaonion said...

I agree that it would seem strange to have made up players in the book, especially to die-hard baseball fans.

Serena said...

Susan: Thanks for the links.

Bermudaonion: Making up players would have been difficult.

Anonymous said...

I've always been curious how co-authors share the writing duties. Fun interview.

Care said...

GO RED SOX!!

(Diane) Bibliophile By the Sea said...

Well...if it's a Red Sox mystery, I MUST read it..LOL (as long as no players are killed by a yankee fan LOL)

Iliana said...

I'm not really a sports fan but I'd definitely give this one a try as I read one of Mary-Ann's books a couple of years ago and thought it was fabulous.

Thanks for the wonderful interview, Serena. So nice to catch up on your blog :)

Serena said...

Stacy: I was curious too.

Care: Yes, GO SOX!

Diane: No Yankee appearances in the main storylines. Just SOX.

Iliana: I'm glad you enjoyed the interview. It was fun to see how they handled it.