MSN Lifestyle's Most Influential Women of 2008

Every year, we here at MSN Lifestyle assemble our list of influential people, and every year we end up asking ourselves the same question: What does "influential" really mean? Does it apply to someone living in the spotlight? Or is it meant for someone less well-known, working behind the scenes but motivating and inspiring just the same?
While it's never easy to define "influence," there are some things we can say for certain. This year's election felt so omnipresent and rife with historic implications we had to resist the urge to fill these lists with politicians and pundits. But even though politics took over our TVs, magazine covers and Web pages for many months, it wasn't the only game in town. The Olympics featured performances that shocked us with raw athletic brilliance. Advances were made in finding solutions for climate change. And celebrities continued to earn our attention.

Here are the women that made 2008 so memorable. See the Men's list

Stephenie Meyer

The former English major and Brigham Young grad claims that she never sought a career in writing. In fact, she was perfectly content being a full-time mother to three boys. But after penning "Twilight", a book based a relationship between a male vampire and a high-school student, she was transformed into a literary luminary with a book debuting at number five on the New York Times bestseller list. Her fame rose in 2008 once Twilight was adapted for the big screen. The casting of English actor Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen, the male vampire, sent female fans into hysterics and sold out theatres everywhere. The movie earned $72 million during opening weekend, giving Meyers a blood-sucking success any author would want to sink her teeth into.