Its members included writers such as Bruce Barton, John Dos Passos, John Erskine, James T. Farrell, John T. Flynn, Rupert Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Clarence Budington Kelland, Clare Boothe Luce, Eugene Lyons, Margaret Mitchell, Ayn Rand, Dorothy Thompson and Louis Waldman.
Many AWA members considered the Cain Plan to be an attempt by Communists to gain control over copyrights.
[3] The AWA soon found backing from radio and film producers, as well as newspaper editors and publishers.
In 1949, the group supported the Contempt of Congress citations against the Hollywood Ten by the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
[7] That same year the AWA denounced the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace as a "fraud", saying its Russian delegates were "prisoners" of that country's Communist authorities.