The key to the program, in my view, is that we look for a combination of a big, important public problem and the ability to write, film, narrate, compose, or otherwise tell a story about it in a way that will engage a much larger audience than "policy books" usually do. At the same time, we look for rising stars and new voices. When we see an application of a person who is not well-known but has evident talent, we know that we can make a difference in that person's life by making them a member of a Fellows cohort.

A Fellows book is a book that I put on my bedside table and actively want to read, not because public policy is my job, but because I am caught up in the story and fully engaged with the characters and the problems they are facing. I always use the example of Sheri Fink's Five Days at Memorial, which reads like a thriller as you wait for Hurricane Katrina to bear down in all its fury on New Orleans and meet the staff and critically ill patients at Baptist Memorial Hospital. The book ultimately raises critically important questions of life, death, euthanasia, and personal and public responsibility in the face of a natural and human disaster, but those questions are much harder to resolve precisely because Fink puts you right there—in the shoes of the people who had to confront them.

The Fellows Program has gone through a number of different phases with a number of terrific directors. At its best, it combines material support with a strong sense of belonging to a cohort, a group of fellow creators who are struggling with their projects just as you are struggling with yours, whom you can ask for help and learn from no matter how different the subject matter or perspective on that subject may be.

What has stayed the same is the vision of New America's founders that the Fellows should represent a new generation of public intellectuals. But whereas they focused above all on political diversity, the program has steadily evolved in the direction of many other types of diversity as well: race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, class, and geography. We aim to reflect every dimension of the America that we are becoming, while also being open to applications from outside America.

My greatest hope for the Fellows Program is that we can support more National Fellows, although never too many to form a cohesive group, and that above all, we can find ways to make the program a "lending library" of great talent to some of the nation's big public universities whose students do not have regular access to the range and quality of creative writers, film-makers, and other story-tellers we support. We currently partner with Arizona State University and Southern New Hampshire University, who both provide financial support and benefit in various ways from being able to invite Fellows to visit campus to teach or speak. The age and prestige of the National Fellows program serve as a beacon for talent; we have refined our selection process and built up our capacity to support a Fellows cohort throughout a year. It would be great if we could then help students and faculty across the country benefit from interacting with our fabulous Fellows.

Read more in Anne-Marie's article on New America's 20th birthday in the Weekly.