Tell us a little about your two latest books. What's DYING BREATH about? And also LILY DALE: BELIEVING.

The heroine of DYING BREATH, Cam Hastings, has always endured disturbing visions of children in danger. She chalked them up to a creative imagination until she spotted a child from one of her visions on a Missing Persons flyer and realized that he actually existed, that she'd actually been having premonitions. Frustratingly helpless to save the doomed children, she began self-medicating to block out the horrific images, and it worked-until now. When we meet, her marriage is in a shambles, she's a recovered alcoholic, pregnant, and her adolescent daughter, Tess, is a hormonal handful. Cam escapes to the Jersey Shore with Tess to try to pick up the pieces-and there, the visions begin again. A serial killer is stalking the seaside summer community on Long Beach Island. Cam sees the doomed victims before they disappear, and begins to wonder if the killer is lurking closer than anyone suspects. When her own daughter begins to appear in her visions, Cam is terrified-and determined to change the pattern, unmask the killer, and race against time to save her daughter's life.

LILY DALE: BELIEVING is the second title in my new hardcover paranormal series for young adults. It's set in the real-life upstate New York spiritualist community, not far from my hometown. In book one, LILY DALE: AWAKENING (coming out in paperback this month), my teenaged heroine, Calla, lost her mom and was sent up north to Lily Dale to live with her estranged, eccentric grandmother, Odelia. She soon discovered that the gated  town of Victorian cottages is almost entirely populated by mediums-and that Odelia is one of them. Not only that, but Calla seems to be similarly gifted, much to her dismay. As this second installment begins, she finds herself talking to dead people-or at least, trying to ignore dead people who want to talk to her. Caught somewhere amid the "normal" world she left behind, the strange new world in Lily Dale, and the eerie spirit world, Calla soon realizes that the spirits have a disturbing message for her-one she can't ignore.
 
You grew up in a large, close-knit family in New York state, and you knew in elementary school that you would become a writer. What motivated you to write?

I still have my first writing assignment ever-an essay about Abe Lincoln-and am back in touch with my now retired third grade teacher, Janet Foster, who praised it highly and lit the spark. I was already a voracious reader and went home from school that day to inform my parents I wanted to write books when I grew up, because my teacher said I was a good writer. Being incredibly supportive, my mom and dad encouraged me to reach for the dream. So on that day back in the early 70s, I set the goal of becoming a novelist, and being an ambitious (some might say obsessive!), type A person (some might say control freak!), I spent the next two decades or so making it happen.

Writing in multiple markets can sometimes cause problems for an author. You've written in young adult, suspense, chick lit, women's fiction, horror, non-fiction, television novelizations, and even co-authored a mystery series with former New York City mayor Ed Koch.  What have you found to be the benefits of working in multiple genres?

I've got a lot of creative energy, and am a prolific writer. It would be incredibly frustrating for me to confine myself to one genre or one book a year-kind of like trying to stuff a tornado into a closet. By writing in different genres, I have an outlet for all those stories in my head, and have happily churned out an average of five or six novels per year under various pseudonyms since I launched my career fifteen years ago. Now I'm primarily focused on sustaining two carefully branded, bestselling author names: my own, Wendy Corsi Staub, who writes suspense for adults and teens, and my pseudonym, Wendy Markham, who writes romance and chick lit.   

Tell us about your new internet community. What do you hope to accomplish with it?
  
I come from a big family and a household that was always filled with relatives and friends, and have continued that tradition in my personal life today. It's always been my style to "bond" with my readers-they've become email pals or even personal friends through the years. Since they're scattered all over, it's not like I can regularly get together with them. My brilliant husband dreamed up the idea for this site with Ed Dintrone and Peter Meluso, two former advertising colleagues of ours, as a virtual gathering place where I can  regularly chat with and update my longtime readers, and welcome new ones, and everyone can get to know each other. The most innovative feature on the site, in my opinion, is the "read along with Wendy" feature. Early in May, you can drop by www.wendycorsistaubcommunity.com, where I'll share the "stories behind the story" as we read a few chapters of DYING BREATH per day.

You moved to New York at 21 to follow your dream. Part of that time was spent as an editor for a major publisher. What things did you learn in that job that put you on the fast track to success?

Ah, that was a deliberate move in the obsessive "Wendy to Author" plan of my youth, which had earlier included getting a part time job in a hometown bookstore to educate myself about the industry.  I figured that if I were an editor, I'd learn behind the scenes tricks of the trade--why some manuscripts are publishable and others are rejected. I certainly accomplished that, and learned that if you want to write for a living, you obviously have to sell your work, and that means your work is your "product" as much as it's your "art." It's much easier, more efficient-and less painful-- to revise your manuscript for the market once you have that mindset.

Do you have a favorite genre to write in? If so, why?

I love suspense.   It's always been my favorite genre to read, because I'm naturally curious (some might say nosy!) and I can't bear not to know what happens next, so it keeps me turning pages. It works the same way when I write suspense-once I've hit my stride with a manuscript, I can't wait to get to my desk and catapult the action. Any author will tell you that the characters tend to take over, and when I'm writing suspense, sometimes I'm as surprised by the twists that emerge during the writing process as my reader will be when it's published. It's fun, exhilarating, and unpredictable-kind of the way I like my real life to be.   

Writers write. That's an obvious truism when applied to you. Do you have any tips on being productive?

I have two secret weapons: my alarm clock, and coffee-in that order, seven days a week. I make myself get up at around four-thirty in the morning and get to the computer, and on a good day, I'll have written eight or ten pages before I get the kids out the door to school. I do drink a lot of coffee to keep myself going, and I don't allow myself long breaks from my desk if I can help it, because that breaks my stride. I eat breakfast and lunch at the computer, and generally emerge from my office around six-thirty or seven, in time to make dinner and relax with my family. By inhabiting my fictional world for long stretches, I find that the writing feels much more organic than it would in piecemeal  fits and starts.

My family is my first priority, my writing is my second, and those are both huge, incredibly time consuming, incredibly rewarding responsibilities. As a result, a lot of things I used to enjoy-like sleeping in, hobbies, television--have sort of fallen away these days. I look at it as a temporary sacrifice while my kids are young and the deadlines are pressing. Maybe it's not the healthiest lifestyle, but it works for me.

Get the full scoop on Wendy's books and schedule at www.wendycorsistaub.com and www.wendycorsistaubcommunity.com.
   
Carolyn Haines is the author of FEVER MOON, PENUMBRA and the Sarah Booth Delaney mystery series. The 8th book in the series, WISHBONES, will be released June 24 by St. Martin's Minotaur. Check out her website, www.carolynhaines.com for signing schedules and contests.