I recently interviewed Chris Bohjalian, author of the enormously popular MIDWIVES as well as many other thought-provoking and captivating novels. His upcoming release, SECRETS OF EDEN just received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.

Do you feel the subject matter of your books are ever rooted in a current event, a hot news story or a popular debate?

I don’t always relate a novel to a current event. “Skeletons at the Feast” is a love triangle set in Poland and Germany in the last six months of World War II. “The Buffalo Soldier” was about parental grief and loss and recovery. “The Double Bind” harkens back to “The Great Gatsby” and the literary canon. And even “Midwives” wasn’t about an issue that was out there in the news: No one was talking about midwifery in 1997. There was no national debate about home vs. hospital birth.

Still, I do have novelist friends who are preternaturally gifted at tapping into the cultural zeitgeist – and they sell boatloads more books than I do. So, clearly they’re on to something.

In any case, the last thing I would tell a novelist is that the key to great art is a great hook. Sometimes great art has a great hook…but I wouldn’t recommend beginning there.

Now, I think that if you are determined to pull something off the newspapers or news web sites and craft it into a novel, be sure there is some moral ambiguity or conflict to the story. Drama still needs conflict, even if your source is the news.

How do you decide what makes a good story?

Some writing professors will tell you to write about what you know; others will tell you to write about what you don’t know, but learn all you can. My sense is that it really doesn’t matter if you are writing about a subject you know all about or one that is completely foreign. The key is to explore a subject you care about so passionately that you want to get up at five a.m. to dive in. That has always been the barometer for me.

I should also note that for every novel I finish, I must go down two dead ends, some of which are hundreds of pages long.

I just love that the title of this Huffington Post piece by Erica Jong is “BIG NEWS: WOMEN CAN WRITE!” Check it out here.

Check out Megan Kelley Hall, author of SISTERS OF MISERY and THE LOST SISTER in the October issue of Redbook Magazine.

We get a lot of questions regarding blogs. Should you have one? Do you need one? What kind of information should be provided on your blog? Will it diminish your professionalism? How do you get traffic to your blog? Will it detract from your published writing?

For authors there are two things you want to focus on with regards to a blog, getting traffic and showing your expertise. A blog is great way to highlight your writing, bring attention to your talent in a public forum and learn new skills. Write about anything and everything that interests you. Create a Facebook page, a Myspace page and link to your blog there. Create a Twitter account and follow other writers. Provide a link to your blog on your Twitter page and consistently update it letting your followers know when you have posted new content.

Sometimes you need a newsworthy hook to gain attention and followers to your blog. Write about something current, whether it be a trend or a news topic that you are familiar with, can provide an opinion on, or somehow relates to your writing. Write about books you are reading and link to the authors. Write about being a writer, provide tips, instruction, guidance and inspiration. If your content is consistently changing, then your audience will grow. If they like your writing, then you may be building a fan base. Blogs are great way to show off your writing skills! They also have the added bonus of helping improve your writing, develop your voice, increase the speed with which you can produce quality material, and fine tune the ability to write with an audience in mind. You are your own best advocate, so use this blog as a way to stand out from the crowd and let your voice be heard.

Writers who worry that blogging will distract from their primary job, being an author, have an understandable worry. Blogging does take time. However, the blog is a wonderful way to combine both the artistic and the business side of being an author. Write about what you know, but also treat your blog like a business card. You want people looking at it! You want them bookmarking it and you want them recognizing your name on a consistent basis.

Here are a few author blogs that shine!

Brenda Janowitz

Joshilyn Jackson

Stephanie Klein

Allison Winn Scotch

Claire Cook

Ann Leary

Kristin Hannah

Barbara Delinsky

Brenda Janowitz, author of SCOT ON THE ROCKS and JACK WITH A TWIST, is hosting an amazing book giveaway over on her site! Head over there and sign yourself up. Because we all know that books make GREAT gifts!

Here are the rules from Brenda’s site:

To enter, just email brenda@brendajanowitz.com and write “Another holiday book giveaway” in the subject line. You must be a subscriber of the www.brendajanowitz.com mailing list to enter.

Want extra entries? Post a blog entry about this giveaway and/or email five friends about it. For each blog entry and each email you send out, you’ll get another entry to win!

Winners will be announced on December 16. So what are you waiting for? Enter today!

This weekend the Lifetime movie version of Jane Porter’s novel, FLIRTING WITH FORTY premiered. I love when books are turned into movies because I find that film versions have the amazing ability to help non-readers discover books and authors. What it allowed me to do was to discover an author I had heard about, but never fully appreciated on my own. Last night I picked up ODD MOM OUT by Jane Porter and could not put it down! It is a wonderful book about being a renegade and a mom, and the challenges both positions pose.

Here is a blog post that Jane wrote about the life of an author versus the life of a writer and how different those two roles can be.