[1] In its early incarnation, the magazine cultivated, disseminated and built a lasting historical record of early mid-century work from notable figures in arts and letters, many of whom would go on to acclaim, including poets Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, George Starbuck and Piero Heliczer; artists Joyce Reopel and Arthur Polonsky; writer Roger Shattuck and writer-comedian Zero Mostel.

[2][3][4] From 1971 to 1973, the magazine was published solely as Audience, and although it was clearly targeted to hip intellectuals and literary arts aficionados serious about their culture, the emphasis on best-in-class continued.

Their work accompanied and illustrated an astonishing array of work by novelists, short story writers, poets and screenwriters, including six Nobel prize winners: Maya Angelou, Saul Bellow, William Golding, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and Nadine Gordimer, and three Pulitzer prize winners: John Cheever, Arthur Miller, John Updike.

Auden, James Baldwin, Thomas Berger, Jorge Luis Borges, Frank Capra, Raymond Carver, Don DeLillo, Joan Didion, Joseph Heller, Jack Kerouac, Vladimir Nabokov, Cynthia Ozick, Walker Percy, George Plimpton, Philip Roth.

[6][7] Under the headline "Outfox the Fellow in the Bright Nightgown," they sought out subscribers with full-page ads in New York Magazine by boasting of an editorial board that included "Alan Arkin, Saul Bellow, Robert Bolt, John Cassavetes, Charles Eames, Philip Johnson, Marisol, Gordan Parks, Anne Sexton, Robert Penn Warren, Tom Wicker, John A. Williams [and] ... charter subscription rates in perpetuity" for early takers.