Captain Kid
William Joyce
Age: 39 Why him?: Because the children's author-illustrator (Bently & Egg, Santa Calls, The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs) has been able to tap into a late-'40s all's-right-with-the-world nostalgia that baby boomers like to share with their kids. What inspires him: ''Hmm...The Marx Brothers. King Kong. Norman Rockwell. Kukla, Fran, and Ollie. David Lean. David Lynch. And The Wizard of Oz.'' Creative crutches: Spam and Vienna sausage sandwiches, airplane food (''As long as it's unidentifiable and salty, I'm thrilled''), and ''a really loud stereo system.'' What's next: A Fox feature film version of Santa Calls; several Disney projects, including one based on his book A Day With Wilbur Robinson; and a Fox TV movie called The Guardians of Childhood, about the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus. (They really do exist, Joyce insists.)
David Sedaris
Truth Sayer
Age: 40 Why him?: The essays in Sedaris' two best-selling books — Barrel Fever and the current Naked — have people talking about the writer's striking approach to autobiography. His work is characterized by a brazen candor, a heart of gold, and the sort of blithely sophisticated, loopy humor that might have resulted if Dorothy Parker and James Thurber had had a love child. Sedaris plumbs his family history with such ruthlessness that, two years ago, he refused to give his parents and siblings their Christmas presents until they signed legal releases saying they wouldn't sue him over anything he'd written in Naked. A former house cleaner and restaurant dishwasher who first caught America's ear reading his prose on National Public Radio, Sedaris is also a playwright whose recent work — The Little Freida Mysteries — was a hit Off Broadway collaboration with his sister, Amy Sedaris, 34. Creative crutches: ''Oh, drugs and alcohol. Prescription drugs, of course.'' How he does it: ''Steely discipline. I write at night between 8:30 and 11 p.m., on an IBM Selectric typewriter. Or at least, that's what I tell myself I do whenever I actually have an idea of what I want to write. For example...'' What's next: ''...I have a play that's supposed to premiere at Lincoln Center in July [another collaboration with sister Amy]. I haven't written one word, and I have no idea what it's about. I have a title: Incident at Cobbler's Nob. I picked that because incident sounds like something's going to happen, and it's always nice for an audience to feel that there'll be some sort of action in your play. I know it's supposed to run a little over an hour, so I have a time frame. And two sets have already been built. When I saw them, I realized the play will have to take place in a forest. What I'll probably do soon is gather all the actors together and ask them what they've always wanted to do on stage but haven't yet had the chance to do. Like maybe someone's always wanted to sing opera or do a dramatic death scene. Maybe that'll spark something.''
Grant Morrison
Comic-Book Savant
Age: 37 Why him?: Morrison, born and based in Glasgow, Scotland, writes two of America's most imaginative comics: JLA, a sleek revamping of Justice League of America that's a best-selling comic in this country, and The Invisibles, the deliriously dense tale of alternate universes, political anarchy, and psychedelic visions. How he does it: ''With passion. In JLA, I wanted to bring back the sense of bleeding wonder in old superheroes like Superman, Batman, and the Flash. The Invisibles represent the zeitgeist at the end of the millennium — I want to show how confused everyone is.'' What's next: ''The screenplays for Lawnmower Man 3 and a [British] TV version of The Invisibles.''
Magical Storyteller
Alice Hoffman
Age: 45 Why her?: She's the best at grafting fairy tales — witches, giants, elixirs — onto pop fiction. And Hollywood is spellbound: She has sold film rights to five novels (including Practical Magic, which may star Sandra Bullock). How she does it: Writes at dawn, ''so my dreams seep in.'' What's next: Here on Earth.
Erotic Novelist
Linda Jaivin
Age: 42 Why her?: The Australia-based journalist's juicy sex novel, Eat Me, caused such a sensation that U.S. publishers have flocked to women's erotica. What inspires her: Her own fantasies (''If it doesn't turn me on, it's not working''). Creative crutch: Her Oxford English Dictionary. ''I have a fetish about it.'' What's next: The novel Rock n' Roll Babes From Outer Space.
The Writer's Writer
Paul Auster
Age: 50 Why him?: His lyric mastery of chance encounters (Smoke, Mr. Vertigo) may explain how the Brooklyn bard popped up on this year's Cannes jury. Creative crutch: ''I write with a fountain pen in quadrille-rule notebooks. People send them from France.'' What's next: Hand to Mouth, a memoir about money; his solo directorial debut, Lulu on the Bridge, starts shooting in October.
Rick Moody
Heir to Cheever
Age: 35 Why him?: He is the publishing prophet of modern suburbia; his prose, both darkly comic and mythic, captures the meltdown of today's nuclear family. How he does it: Wakes up ''appallingly early'' at 6 a.m., is at his Mac Powerbook in a corner of his gigantic Brooklyn studio apartment by 9, writes (to ''some incredibly monotonous background music, like early Philip Glass or Brian Eno'') until noon, then edits wherever he happens to be next: on the subway, in a cafe. What's next: Director Ang Lee's version of Moody's The Ice Storm, due this fall, and an anthology of essays by his ''mostly atheist contemporaries'' on the New Testament.
