ROCHESTER - Jane Hamilton worries. As a successful novelist who has plied her craft for decades, the mere fact that the Internet gives birth to a new blog every minute of every day gives her pause as she starts promoting her new novel, "Laura Rider's Masterpiece."

Will there still be novels in the future? Will there still be readers?

In the Internet age there is certainly no shortage of writers, would-be or otherwise.

Hamilton, the best-selling author of novels including "The Book of Ruth" and "A Map of the World," didn't question whether there would be readers when she started out. The landscape is different now, she says, and she worries about the students she teaches and what the future holds for them as writers.

Hamilton worries, too, about the kinds of students she teaches.

There are the earnest ones, like those she taught last year at Carleton College in Minnesota, who want to spend their life, like Hamilton has, weaving words into stories.

Then there are those, like many Hamilton met recently aboard a cruise ship where she taught a writing workshop, who, she believes, just want to be published.

That's where the idea for Hamilton's sixth novel, "Laura Rider's Masterpiece," was born.

The novel, released this month by Grand Central Publishing, is set, like Hamilton's other novels, in the Midwest, this time in a small Wisconsin town, not unlike the one where Hamilton has lived for the past 30 years. It's a landscape that is familiar to the 52-year-old author, who still writes from an office in her farmhouse in rural Racine County.

Hamilton has started doing readings from her new book at local bookstores in southeastern Wisconsin. She plans to do a reading at the Rochester Public Library in the near future.

What can you tell me about your new book, "Laura Rider's Masterpiece?"

It's a comedy, which sometimes seems to surprise people when I tell them, and even dismay them. This is a little puff of a book about a woman who wants to write a novel, a romance novel, but she's never been a reader.

So she has to figure out how to write a book. She wants to set her husband up with the public radio host, who happens to live in her town. One thing leads to the next and the host and her husband have a lively relationship. She needs to watch this relationship unfold in order to write the book.

What is the difference between wanting to write and wanting to be published?

I think people must have this fantasy, still even in this culture, that somehow being a writer makes you a celebrity. I think that is a misconception.

Maybe that was true in the 1930s, '40s and '50s. I don't think that's so true anymore. I think the reason people want to be writers rather than sculptors … our language is our common currency and we all have stories to tell.

How important is place in your writing?

It's essential. The characters come first in my mind. The place is with them. It's all of a piece. If I were to write of Georgia, or Michigan, or Hong Kong, it would feel like a fantasy. It would feel like a complete invention to me.

Do you ever worry that fewer people will read novels in the future?

I worry nonstop, yeah sure. When I read, I read a lot. I read a lot of books that are just kind of average. When I read a really great book, it is just a deep pleasure. Why would we not have this thing that is just so sublime?