Top 50 Power Showrunners 2011

"I shouldn't be the girl people call to write an espionage thriller," jokes Bicks. And why would they? The New York native, who grew up seeing Woody Allen stroll the streets of Manhattan ("I felt surrounded by playwrights and filmmakers," she says), has carved a comfortable niche as the go-to writer for female-centered comedies with tinges of sadness. Her Emmy-winning stint on Sex and the City and her run as creator of ABC's Men in Trees poised Bicks for her biggest project -- showrunning and writing Showtime's cancer comedy (created by Darlene Hunt) The Big C, which earned star Laura Linney a lead comedy actress Emmy nomination. A cancer survivor herself, Bicks, 48, says she realized she had a knack for writing as early as elementary school, but it wasn't until after college that she got paid for it: She was working in advertising in Manhattan in the 1990s when a friend pointed Bicks to an ad for a syndicated radio network looking for comedy writers. Big C recently wrapped a critically acclaimed second season, and she will spend the hiatus before season three mining more personal territory in her newest project -- exploring New York relationships in the Lifetime dramedy pilot Modern Love.