Publishing is full of rankings, from power lists to best-dressed lists to under-40 lists. The CULT100 is different. There is just one criterion for inclusion—but it’s a high bar.

To qualify, a candidate must be actively shaping and changing our culture in real time. The people on this list represent five generations and hail from the worlds of food, publishing, art, fashion, activism, and entertainment. To put this group together, CULTURED‘s editors leveraged the full strength of our network, tapping artists, writers, and cultural leaders to tell us who they look to when they want to feel challenged, hopeful, and inspired.

Some members of the CULT100 are household names; others have been working behind the scenes to make possible the cultural encounters that stop us in our tracks. In a time of binary thinking, the creators featured in this year’s list are embracing contradiction, bouncing willfully between disciplines, and refusing to take no for an answer. They have guts, vision, and a potent cocktail of realism and optimism. None of them is shying away from the anxiety of our moment. Instead, they are thinking big, sharing generously, and embodying courage. The good news is, their work makes us all a little bit braver, too.

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Lili Peper
Photography by Lili Peper

Maggie Nelson

Writer

NAME AN INFLUENCE OF YOURS THAT MIGHT SURPRISE PEOPLE.

I confess to having been a fanatic about the band the Cure when I was young. More than literature, I read goth lyrics, and learned most of my big words from Robert Smith and Siouxsie Sioux.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SURPRISED YOURSELF IN YOUR WORK?

If you’re a writer and your work doesn’t surprise you, you’re in trouble. I don’t even know if I’d call that writing. I just wrote a little book based on dreams. Despite its grim subject matter, was a lot of fun, precisely because one’s dreams are usually surprising.

“How can I, each day, not make things worse for myself and others, and maybe even make them a little better?”

WHO DO YOU CALL THE MOST?

The phone records don’t lie—Harry Dodge, the love of my life, even if it’s just to make sure we know who’s doing what every day, or to trade stupid memes.

WHEN YOU WERE LITTLE, WHAT WERE YOU KNOWN FOR?

Talking a lot. Hyperactivity, being “accident prone,” and loving to dance.

DESCRIBE A RECENT CROSSROADS AT WHICH YOU FOUND YOURSELF.

I turned 50 last year, so crossroads is the name of the game. My crossroads tend to be internal, like: How can I, each day, not make things worse for myself and others, and maybe even make them a little better?

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ROSE BYRNE
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JULIANNE MOORE