Rookies of the Year

Juliette Lewis
She seems, at first blush, like a bit of fluff: a dimple-chinned, pouty-lipped, perfectly ordinary kid. But Juliette Lewis warrants a closer look. As a teenage daughter headed for death row in tabloid TV's Too Young to Die? (1990), she got solid notices for helping turn flimsy generic trash into high art. When Martin Scorsese needed a Teenage Daughter for the ultimate genre picture, Cape Fear, Lewis was a natural choice. Tremulous, sharp, emotionally transparent, and gawky as a colt about to bolt the stable, she actually steals the movie's seduction scene from Robert De Niro. At 18, Lewis has outdone the whole pack of Hollywood brats. Now she sits at the grown-ups' table: She was just cast to replace Emily Lloyd in Woody Allen's next movie.

Whitney Otto
Before Villard Books published How to Make an American Quilt, nobody had ever heard of Whitney Otto. Nobody except the patients at a San Francisco dental office where Otto kept the records. This year Otto made her name with her first novel, which spent seven weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. Villard printed 62,500 copies, a staggering number for a first novel. But they sold: At readings, women came to Otto with armloads of books for their daughters and sisters. ''It's a book about women,'' says Otto, 36, who is now at work on a second novel. ''Quilting is one of the few things that belong to them. Quilting encompasses artistic, practical, and political purposes for women.'' And so does Otto's book.

Joseph B. Vasquez
An inner-city Diner? An Afro-Latino American Graffiti? A way, way Uptown Saturday Night? Audiences didn't quite know how to label Hangin' With the Homeboys, a gentle, funny story about four South Bronx buddies veering through a night of aimless adventure, but there was no mistaking the quietly assured talent of its writer-director. Vasquez, 29, spent his boyhood shooting Super-8 movies in the Bronx and grew up on a diet of '70s blockbusters (American Graffiti, The Exorcist, Rocky); he portrays his characters with a clear-eyed compassion that won him a screenwriting prize at the Sundance Film Festival. His next film, Writing on the Wall, will deal with a racially explosive high school killing.

Trisha Yearwood
A supple, vibrant voice, a collection of crisply produced, radio-friendly tunes, and a little help from Garth Brooks — what more could an aspiring country-music singer require? Twenty-seven-year-old Trisha Yearwood, who once worked in a record company publicity department, turned those promising ingredients into a debut album that went gold, yielded two hit country singles (the summer smash ''She's in Love With the Boy'' and ''Like We Never Had a Broken Heart,'' with Garth Brooks providing harmony), and announced the arrival of Nashville's newest sensation. Building on the further momentum she's gained while opening for Brooks on his concert tour, she's planning to record a follow-up album right after the first of the year.