It is no coincidence that everyone on the list below is a writer. Thirty years ago the embryo of The Writers Room was to be found in the New York Public Library on 42nd Street, where a score of qualified writers (i.e. each had to have publishers’ contracts) labored in a dedicated room where they could store their typewriters and research materials. About to be ejected because their two-year tenancy was up, a small group went boldly in search of their own space — one that would accept all varieties of writers, require no publisher imprimatur, and be open at all hours of the day and night. And so this little band gathered some foundation money, bought six desks and rented a small office half a block away. It decided, too, that the Room would always be steered by writers. Who better to understand and respond to their needs and wants?

Ann Banks

Ann Banks’s books include First Person America, an anthology of oral histories, as well as seven books for children. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Sunday Magazine and Book Review, Harper’s Magazine, Vogue, Conde Nast Traveler and The Atlantic Monthly. She is currently writing a blog called The Open-Minded Skeptic.

Michael Berg

Michael Berg is a screenwriter whose credits include the Oscar-winning animated feature film Ice Age and New Jersey Turnpike.

Roberta Brandes Gratz

Roberta Brandes Gratz is author of The Living City: Thinking Small in a Big Way and Cities Back From the Edge: New Life for Downtown. She free lances and lectures internationally on urban development issues and was appointed to the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2003 by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Carlos A. Gutiérrez

Carlos A. Gutiérrez is the co-founding director of Cinema Tropical, the leading New York-based non-profit media arts organization dedicated to the promotion, distribution and programming of Latin American cinema in the United States. He is a contributing editor to BOMB magazine and has served as a member of the jury and the selection committees for various film festivals in the United States and throughout Latin America.

Henry Guzmán

A graduate of Boston University School of Law, Henry Guzmán serves with the United States Environmental Protection Agency as a lead enforcement attorney in the cleanup of toxic waste sites. He also received a Master of Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing from NYU?s Tisch School of the Arts and has had plays produced Off Broadway and in regional theaters.

Robin Hirsch

In 1977 Robin Hirsch co-founded the Cornelia Street Cafe in Greenwich Village, which the City of New York proclaimed “a cultural as well as a culinary landmark.” There he produces some 700 cultural events a year and still finds time to perform and write (Last Dance at the Hotel Kempinski, FEG: Stupid Poems for Intelligent Children, and innumerable checks).

A.M. Homes

A.M. Homes is the author of the memoir The Mistress’s Daughter, the novels This Book Will Save Your Life, Music for Torching, The End of Alice, In A Country Of Mothers, Jack, and the story collections, The Safety of Objects and Things You Should Know. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, Esquire, Granta, Harper’s Bazaar, The New Yorker,

The New York Times Magazine and Vanity Fair, where she is a contributing editor.

Hoong Yee L. Krakauer

Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer is the Executive Director of the Queens Council on the Arts. As a lifelong Queens resident, she is a firm believer in the power of the arts to mobilize and transform community. At the Council, she oversees all programmatic activities that include: arts in education initiatives, information services, arts services, and grants programs including the Queens Community Arts Fund, the Individual Artist Initiative, the Arts in the Schools Grant Program. She is the author and illustrator of Rabbit Mooncakes, a multicultural picture book for children published by Little, Brown & Company. Her second book, Peanut & the Chinese Dragon is in development. She is a graduate of Oberlin College, attended the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria and received a Masters of Music in Piano Performance from the Manhattan School of Music. Hoong Yee is married to a nice Jewish boy from Rockaway, Queens where they live with their three children, Mikki, Remy & Sky.

Anne Landsman

Anne Landsman is the author of The Devil’s Chimney and the upcoming The Rowing Lesson. She recently contributed an essay to the anthology, The Honeymoon’s Over. Her writing has also appeared in The American Poetry Review, Bomb, Poets and Writers, The Washington Post and The Believer.

Nancy Milford

Nancy Milford is the author of two biographies: Zelda, about the life of Zelda Fitzgerald, and Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay. She is currently writing a biography of Rose Kennedy. In 1978, Ms. Milford helped to found The Writers Room with a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts. She is currently the Distinguished Lecturer in English at Hunter College, the City University of New York.

Dane J. Neller

Dane J. Neller is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of On Demand Books LLC (“ODB”), the first company to globally deploy the patented Espresso Book Machine (“EBM”), a fully automatic book making machine intended for use in retail stores and libraries. Mr. Neller was a former owner and CEO of Dean & Deluca for over 8 years. Between 1993 and 1997, he was Chief Investment Officer of the Leslie Rudd Investment Company, a private equity fund. Prior to this, Mr. Neller held various positions in private equity and investment banking firms, beginning his career at Morgan Stanley & Co., Inc. from 1984–1987. He graduated from Yale University in 1979 (B.A.), 1980 (M.A.), and Yale Law School in 1984 (J.D.). He was enrolled in the M.Litt. program at Oxford University in 1980. Mr. Neller was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1985.

Charles Ruas

Charles Ruas is the author of Conversations with American Writers and translator of Michel Foucault’s Death and the Labyrinth: The World of Raymond Roussel as well as Pierre Assouline’s An Artful Life: A Biography of D.H. Kahnwiler. He edited Harp Song for a Radical: The Life and Times of Eugene Victor Debs by Marguerite Young. He contributes frequently to ARTnews and Art in America and is the literary critic for WPS1, the Museum of Modern Art’s internet station.

Tom Shachtman

Tom Shachtman is the author of more than 30 books, including Rumspringa, The Day America Crashed, Decade of Shocks, Around the Block, and Absolute Zero and The Conquest of Cold. He has also written TV documentaries and a trilogy of novels about animal behavior.

John Thackray

John Thackray is a business and financial magazine writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Forbes, Barrons, the Institutional Investor, Euromoney, New Republic, the London Observer and other magazines and newspapers.

Peter Warner

Peter Warner is the author of two novels. He is president of the publisher, Thames & Hudson Inc.

Doron Weber

Doron Weber is the author of three published nonfiction books (Safe Blood, The Complete Guide to Living Wills, Final Passages) one-and-one-third unpublished novels (The Deserters, The Lovers) and numerous articles and op eds. He works as a program director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Shelby White

Shelby White is the author of the non-fiction book What Every Woman Should Know About Her Husband’s Money. She writes business and finance articles with an emphasis on philanthropy for the New York Times, Town and Country and Forbes, among other publications.