Define 'thrillers' as a genre.

The thriller I like to read--and write--is a fast-paced, cliffhanger-laced whodunit where nothing is as it seems. My favorite thrillers are populated by three-dimensional, contemporary characters who have deep, dark secrets.  

Do you have a dream project that you haven't gotten to yet?

Yes, and it's a family project. We're about halfway through a 50-state book tour that began when my husband and I promised our children we'd see the entire country before our oldest graduates from high school. He's still in middle school, so we're doing pretty well. Last summer, we decided to it might be fun to write a nonfiction book about our travels, told from all four points of view: Mom, Dad, adolescent, and grade-schooler. This coming summer we're driving from Texas to South Dakota, so I'm sure we'll have plenty of new material. Someday soon, I hope, we'll get around to writing about it!

You're able to navigate comfortably in four separate genres, whereas most writers are afraid to put a toe over genre lines.  How have you managed it?  

I've always been open-minded in terms of what I read--I like a little bit of everything and tend to bounce from section to section in bookstores and libraries. I guess I've carried that eclectic tendency over to the way I approach writing. Being versatile keeps things interesting! As long as I can work on one project at a time, to keep the voice and tone pure, I'm comfortable. I only run into trouble when I have to, say, unexpectedly drop a chick lit in the middle to revise a thriller. When I go back to the chick lit, I initially have to remind myself not to have the heroine hack her annoying friend to death. That sort of thing.  ;-)

What would surprise most authors about writing Young Adult fiction?

That unless your age begins with a one, you're probably not as in touch with contemporary kids as you think you are. I mean, I always thought I was a pretty hip mom until my oldest hit adolescence and I found out that even the word hip is not hip. Speaking as someone who attended middle school thirty years ago, it's not easy to navigate a world where something "so five minutes ago" is ancient history. You really have to immerse yourself in contemporary YA culture--not just understand it, but respect it--in order to create realistic YA fiction. And remember: these kids live in a world of instant gratification, so fast-paced writing is the key to their hearts.

Calla is a complex character with a lot of emotional baggage.  Discuss the creation of this character.

Most of us would probably consider ourselves ordinary people, yet there are times when we find ourselves in extraordinary circumstances. What happens then? How do we change, for better or worse? I wanted to explore that theme in Lily Dale. Not only has Calla recently lost her mom, but she's been uprooted from the only life she's ever known to live with her long-estranged grandmother in a town that's--of all things, populated entirely by spiritualists. Finding out that she can also communicate with the dead is a good news/bad news scenario for Calla.

I conceived this character for a television treatment I was writing long before my own mom became terminally ill with breast cancer. I lost her a few years ago, right around the time we were negotiating the rights for Lily Dale with some television producers. That deal fell through, but I felt a renewed bond with my character, ironically finding myself suddenly in her shoes as a newly motherless daughter. I changed direction and rewrote Calla's story as a series of books. And I'm happy to say that it's once more in development for television!

Lily Dale is a pretty fascinating town.  What sources did you draw on to create the town?

I wish I could take credit for creating it, but it really exists! The birthplace of American spiritualism, Lily Dale is a gated Victorian community in upstate New York. My hometown is a few miles away, so I grew up familiar with the mediums and the fascinating tales that came out of "the Dale," as locals refer to it.

Lily Dale: Connecting is the third book in the series.  Do readers have to start with the first in the series or can they jump in here?

You don't necessarily have to start with the first book, Lily Dale: Awakening. In fact, I've had lots of readers write to say they stumbled across the second title, Lily Dale: Believing, then went back afterward to read the first. In every consecutive book, I'm careful to work in the series premise and some background information so that new readers won't be lost. And note the alphabet-friendly titles, making it easy to keep them in order!

You use online social networking very well with newsletters, websites, etc.  Discuss the advantages of social networking and give some marketing advice for other writers.

I can't take all the credit. My husband, Mark, a former ad sales guy, along with his former colleagues Ed Dintrone and Peter Meluso, now of Aquaint Interactive, came up with the idea of developing an innovative, dedicated social networking site for me to use as a literary marketing tool in addition to my regular website. Peter and Ed believe it to be the first of its kind, and the experiment is paying off already. We raced against time to launch it by May, just as I was releasing two brand new novels: Lily Dale: Believing, and my adult thriller Dying Breath, which became a New York Times bestseller. We're up to almost four hundred regular members at this point, with heavy lurker traffic as well. Anyone interested in learning more about it should check out the site at www.wendycorsistaubcommunity.com, let me know your thoughts, and please feel free to contact me for more info!

My philosophy, in terms of my various networking strategies, is this: where would any author be without readers and booksellers? It's important to stay in touch with the people who are enthusiastic about my work, to express my gratitude for their support, to know who and where they are, listen to their feedback, share "behind the scenes" action with them.  Trust me, the interaction is mutually beneficial.  Writing can be a lonely business, so I crave that human connection!  

Finally, my tried-and-true marketing advice is to focus on being prolific, so that your name stays out there on a regular basis and readers become "trained" to look for it.

A number of your books have been written using pen names.  Introduce us to the other faces of Wendy Corsi Staub.

Wendy Corsi Staub is my real name, and these days, I use it strictly for thrillers, both YA and adult suspense novels. My current alter-ego is Wendy Markham, a USA Today bestselling author of chick lit and whimsical time travel or paranormal romance. I've written some horror and category romance as Wendy Morgan in the past, and I occasionally continue to use that name today in certain overseas markets. I did a pop culture bio of Prince Harry awhile back using the pseudonym Wendy Brody.

Branding an author has become vastly important in publishing today.  So what are the pros and cons of using pen names in today's market?

I've always been a big believer in branding, coming from a New York ad agency background. If you're going to write for more than one genre, using a pen name can keep your readers from being confused or disillusioned. When readers pick up a Wendy Corsi Staub book, they expect one thing; in a Wendy Markham book, they expect something entirely different. My pen names allow me to deliver on those expectations. For authors who want to protect their privacy or identity, a pen name provides anonymity. Authors whose sales lagged under one name can reinvent themselves under another.

Really, the only con I can think of is that your long lost evil ex-boyfriend won't recognize your name in a bookstore someday and figure out that you made it big!

JONATHAN MABERRY is the multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author of ZOMBIE CSU: The Forensics of the Living Dead (Citadel Press) and PATIENT ZERO (St. Martins Press, March 2009).  Visit him at www.jonathanmaberry.com