Bryan Burrough

All the way back in 1999, when I first stumbled upon the idea of a project tracking John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson and all the major Depression-era bank robbers, I thought the subject was too big to be a single book. Instead, with a friend's help, I pitched the idea as a miniseries to HBO. To my amazement, they bought it.

I must be the last person online to have been struck with this realization, but it's amazing how the Internet has empowered hundreds of ordinary people, turning them into little Diane Sawyers and Anderson Coopers as they snap and blog away.

From 1961 to 1964, I was fortunate enough to work at a think tank in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago. As a writer and editor, I reported in a publication about the thinkers. Our offices were in a former mansion; I worked in what had been the ballroom. As I sat typing my copy, I imagined the dancers waltzing.

Smart authors, faced with storms, chose to create umbrellas. That's why a diverse group of authors banded together to create The Fiction Writer's Co-op, which will work to find innovative ways to promote each other's work and cheer each other on in a very competitive field.