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"I half-expected spirits to swirl out of the box, a' la Pandora. Angry ghosts, maybe the ectoplasm Noodle was so scared of. Instead, a vaguely floral smell drifted up, a surprisingly clean smell. I slipped my fingers into the gap between the cardboard flaps, and slowly, cautiously, spread them open."

That's a passage from novelist Gayle Brandeis' new book, Self Storage--giving you a taste of her evocative prose. The novel follows an unhappy woman who buys and sells boxes full of other people's belongings. She buys sealed boxes at self-storage auctions, purchasing containers with potentially magical, dull, dangerous, spooky or life-changing contents.

This week Brandeis--a Bellwether Prize winner for her socially conscious fiction--is our special guest in my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a serialized set of weekly interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing...

Jason Boog:
I know you've won a number of social and political awards for your writing. What is your favorite example of how your writing and your social conscience have intersected in the real world? How can a fledgling writer channel political or social passion into fiction?

Gayle Brandeis:
One favorite example—I was at a peace march in Washington, DC in September 2005. Someone asked me to write a few chants for our group (CODEPINK, a women's peace organization.) Continue reading...

It was a very powerful experience to be marching with hundreds of women dressed in pink all chanting my words. I think the favorite chant of the day was "Rita, Katrina, we need another leader!"—people seemed to enjoy the rhythm of it.

Of course this is different from my fiction writing, but it was such a moving communal experience. I have had powerful experiences sharing my fiction, as well, but those tend to be more quiet and private.

For fledgling writers who want to channel political or social passion into their fiction, I think the key word is "passion." If you're passionate about something, it can't help but seep into your writing, and give it real life blood, a real heart beat.

The thing I caution against, though, is turning fiction into propaganda. The social issues need to be woven into the whole fabric of the story—they need to arise organically from the setting, from the characters. If the characters are just mouth pieces for the author's agenda, it will feel forced.

But if the author infuses their passion into the story, and lets the characters distill that passion in their own way, some amazing socially charged fiction can result.