If you want to be a writer, head for New York.
False.
Blagowidow, Chesbro, Linzee, Reiter, Slosberg, Stein, and Stewart live, or lived for long periods, in the New York Metropolitan area. The other 30 novelists did not. Brooks and Jackson, among others, have managed to be very successful living thousands of miles from New York.
"It's up to you, New York, New York" is a sentiment we can safely consign to the old Sinatra song.