Under The Sun

Brenda Mezick, the author of Respect, is an assistant state attorney for Miami-Dade County specializing in cyber crimes. She is originally from Poolesville, Maryland, a rural town on the outskirts of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Brenda has lived in South Florida for 16 years.

1. What’s your six-word South Florida memoir?

I never expected to live here.

2. Which South Florida author would you most like to have with you on a deserted island and why?

Nick Garnett. I read his memoir and it’s really hot.

3. Word or phrase you forbid yourself from using in your writing?

“I hold you in my highest approbation.” I was a Jane Austen nut, and I have to stop myself from letting that bleed into my writing.

4. Favorite thing about the tourist season?

The number of places in my neighborhood that deliver.

5. The last night club you went to, what you drank, how much you paid for the drink and how much to get in?

What was formerly Opium on Collins Avenue. I was taking witness statements from club security during a prosecution of Jose Canseco. Didn’t pay to enter and didn’t drink.

6. Color that most makes you want to vomit when you see it in South Florida?

The putrid yellow of human fat that you see at autopsies and certain homicide scenes, particularly involving shotguns.

7. Where would you rather be than in South Florida?

The Arthur Findlay College of Spiritualism and Psychic Sciences in England. That’s a place you just don’t hear enough about.

8. What’s your favorite thing about the off-season (non-tourist season)?

Lower caseloads. Turns out that all criminals aspire to visit South Florida at least once in their careers.

9. What does the rest of the world have totally wrong about this part of the country?

We’re really not that sexy. We just wear a lot less clothing than most of the nation.

10. In three words, how do you describe the experience of living in South Florida?

Surreal, forensic, multi-lingual.