CONTRIBUTORS

1 Hillay Clinton

A longtime advocate of the arts, Hillary Rodham Clinton has championed the Art in Embassies program (which she spotlights on page 116) as secretary of state, awarding the first-ever U.S. Department of State Medals of Arts. When speaking to the five recipients last November, Clinton (pictured above with artists in the program) described art as a tool of diplomacy. "It is one that reaches beyond governments," she said, "past all of the official conference rooms and the presidential palaces, to connect with people all over the world."

2 Joyee Carol Oates

With the second season of HBO's Girls forthcoming, novelist Joyce Carol Oates praises show creator Lena Dunham in this month's V.F. Portrait, on page 126. "She is a very engaging, unpretentious, intelligent young woman with a great sense of humor," says Oates, who is a professor of creative writing at Princeton University. Her new novels, Daddy Low (Mysterious Press) and The Accursed (Ecco), are due out this month and in March, respectively.

3 David Downton

Much to the chagrin of fashion illustrator David Downton, the PBS hit Downton Abbey—which depicts the tribulations of an aristocratic family in post-Edwardian England—returns this month. "Em hoping for a drop in ratings so I can get my name back," says Downton, who elegantly captures actress Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary) on page 134. An exhibition of Downton's work opens at Claridge's, where he is the hotel's artist-inresidence, in London this spring.

4 CORBY KUMMER

As an editor and food writer for The Atlantic and a restaurant critic for Boston magazine, Corby Kummer has learned firsthand the extravagant lengths to which restaurants will go to impress and please their customers. But, as he reports in "Tyranny—It's What's for Dinner" (page 80), many have gone too far. "These restaurants are promising this constant fireworks-like display of astonishment and delight," says Kummer. "Too often, that can be a recipe for disappointment and tedium."