Chris Bohjalian Biography
Chris Bohjalian and his wife decided to leave New York City in 1986 for
"pastoral" Vermont after a wild and terrifying 45-minute cab ride that
ultimately dropped them at a crack house being stormed by police.
Since then he has written eleven novels including Midwives (1997) which
was an Oprah Book Selection in 1998. Midwives was also made into a 2001
movie starring Sissy Spacek and Pete Coyote.
Fans of Mr. Bohjalian are probably very pleased that he did not take the advice
given him in college by the writer-in-residence when he applied for a writing
seminar. After reading the short story required for admittance, the
writer/instructor "slid my short story across the expanse of the desk as if it
were a piece of profoundly disagreeable road kill. 'I have three words for you,
she said. Be a banker'."
Instead he had the courage to follow his dream and take his own advice which he
now doles out to new writers wanting to be discovered. "Have a thick skin. Read
lots and write often about things that interest you passionately. The key is to
care so deeply about a subject that you are willing to give up a year or two of
your life to it."
Bohjalian's love affair with reading began at age 13 as the result of two
simultaneous events. His family moved from New York to Florida and a visit to
the orthodontist which resulted in his wearing a piece of headgear "that looked
like the business end of a backhoe". He couldn't speak when wearing it and
refused to wear it to school. With no opportunity to make after-school friends,
books became his best friends during that impressionable time period in his
life, adolescence.
His work has been translated into 18 languages, been published in 21 countries,
and twice become acclaimed movies ("Midwives" and "Past the Bleachers"). The
Law of Similars, Water Witches, and The Buffalo Soldier are in
development for movies, as well.
He has written for a wide variety of magazines, including Cosmopolitan, Reader's
Digest, and the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, and has been a Sunday columnist
for Gannett's Burlington Free Press since 1992. Chris graduated from Amherst
College, and lives in Vermont with his wife and daughter where he writes a
weekly newspaper column for the Burlington Free Press called "Idyll Banter".
This biography was last updated on 04/20/2008.
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