Barbara Branden is a writer and lecturer. She earned her M.A. in philosophy, and authored a thesis on free will, under the direction of Sidney Hook at New York University. She was Ayn Rand's intimate friend and colleague for eighteen years, and a close friend of the members of the "Rand Circle." She was Managing Editor of "The Objectivist,” a philosophical journal, and Executive Vice-President of Nathaniel Branden Institute in New York. At NBI, she conceived and presented a popular course on the nature of efficient thinking. In 1986, Doubleday published the first edition of her best-selling and critically acclaimed biography, "The Passion of Ayn Rand", which subsequently spawned a Showtime television movie, starring Helen Mirren and Peter Fonda. Barbara lives in West Hollywood, California.