What was your inspiration behind the character Sammy Greene?

Linda Reid: Sammy is a woman we admire for her determination, principles, tenacity, and...chutzpah.  She represents the best of young energy, dynamism, and activism--a sense of optimism about the world and a confidence that her actions can make a positive difference.  She is born of parts of both of our personalities, perhaps as we ourselves would like to have been as college students--change agents who work from the heart.

What are your future plans for Sammy?

Deborah Shlian: Linda and I have just completed the second book in our thriller series featuring Sammy. Devil Wind takes place five years after Dead Air.  Sammy has moved to Los Angeles to take a job as midnight talk show host on a struggling radio station, and, while helping an old friend search for his missing daughter, stumbles on a conspiracy that leads from Los Angeles to Washington. Devil Wind refers to the Santa Anas - hot dry winds that sweep from the deserts across the LA basin each winter, often triggering horrendous fires that turn Los Angeles into a hellish inferno. It's a perfect backdrop to our thriller because, as Raymond Chandler once wrote, when those winds blast, "anything can happen".

 How did the two of you come together as co-authors?

Linda Reid: We worked together as physicians at UCLA (Deborah was Medical Director of Student Health at the time and hired me to work there). We discovered that we shared common interests in both creative writing and health education. I had finished a science fiction novel, and was plotting a book which eventually became Where Angels Fear to Tread (as Yolanda Pascal); and I had served as a staff writer for the TV series Family Medical Center and an essayist for the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Among the projects Deborah and I discussed was a medical thriller, which gave birth to Sammy Greene and Dead Air.

 Deborah Shlian: I had just finished writing my third novel, Rabbit in the Moon, and while waiting for it to be published, began to get a little itchy to write another novel. Linda had just returned to UCLA from a staff writing job on the TV series Family Medical Center and was interested in penning a medical thriller.  We decided on a plot that involved a less-than-ethical experiment on a Vermont university campus. The protagonist is a 20-something college student named Sammy Greene, a journalism student with her own campus radio talk show. In Dead Air, Sammy uses her show as a forum to solve the mystery of why students are suddenly dying and ultimately expose the corruption behind the Ivy's walls.

 You have two book trailers for Dead Air. How has social media and technology benefited the promotion and marketing of your writing?

Deborah Shlian: Readers are everywhere today--and we wanted to reach out to them not only in libraries and bookstores but online. College students like Sammy use Facebook and Twitter to network and communicate. It's critical for writers to speak the language of their readers and welcome these new tools to share our exciting work and news.  Readers today are also viewers, and visual media play a great role in encouraging a broad audience to read our books. Just as the web is a growing source of TV viewers online, the internet and e-book technology will allow us to reach out to thriller-lovers of all ages.

How has International Thriller Writers benefited you?

Linda Reid: We are honored to be a part of such a dynamic community of fellow writers who provide support, mentoring, and networking opportunities as we bring some medical spice to the thriller genre. ITW's Thrillerfest is a "must-attend" highlight of the year, and the guidance and information provided by ITW through its newsletters and workshops nurtures writers in their often challenging journeys.

To learn more about Deborah and Linda, and to view the trailers and more for Dead Air, please visit http://www.sammygreene.com.

Lori A. May is a novelist, poet, and freelance writer whose work has appeared in periodicals and anthologies such as The Writer, Tipton Poetry Journal, and Van Gogh's Ear. She is the author of two romantic suspense novels, THE PROFILER and MOVING TARGET, and is currently working on a YA suspense. Up next for Lori is a book-length collection of poetry, stains, with an autumn 2009 release. Her blog at http://loriamay.blogspot.com focuses on the writing life as well as author interviews, book news and reviews.