Curtis Sittenfeld | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Elizabeth Curtis Sittenfeld (1975-08-23)August 23, 1975 (age 50) Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Language | English |
| Alma mater | |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Spouse | Matt Carlson (divorced 2026)[1] |
| Children | 2 |
| Relatives | P.G. Sittenfeld (brother) |
| Website | |
| curtissittenfeld | |
Elizabeth Curtis Sittenfeld (born August 23, 1975) is an American writer. She is the author of two collections of short stories,You Think it, I’ll Say It (2018) andShow Don't Tell (2025), as well as seven novels:Prep (2005), the story of students at aMassachusettsprep school;The Man of My Dreams (2006), acoming-of-age novel and an examination of romantic love;American Wife (2008), a fictional story loosely based on the life ofFirst LadyLaura Bush;Sisterland (2013), which tells the story of identical twins with psychic powers;Eligible (2016), a modern-day retelling ofPride and Prejudice;Rodham (2020), an alternate history political novel about the life ofHillary Clinton; andRomantic Comedy (2023), a romance between a comedy writer and a pop star.
Elizabeth Curtis Sittenfeld was born August 23, 1975, inCincinnati, Ohio. She is the second of four children (three girls and a boy) born to Elizabeth "Betsy" Curtis (née Bascom) and Paul George Sittenfeld (d. 2021). Her mother is anart history teacher and librarian atSeven Hills School, a private school in Cincinnati, and her father was an investment adviser.[2] Her younger brother,P.G. Sittenfeld, is a former member of theCincinnati City Council. Her mother is Catholic and her father was Jewish.[3]
She attended Seven Hills School through the eighth grade, then attended high school atGroton School, aboarding school inGroton, Massachusetts, graduating in 1993. In 1992, the summer before her senior year, she wonSeventeen magazine's fiction contest.
Sittenfeld attendedVassar College inPoughkeepsie, New York before transferring toStanford University inPalo Alto, California. At Stanford, she studied creative writing, wrote articles for the college newspaper, and edited that paper's weekly arts magazine. At the time, she was also chosen as one ofGlamourʼs College Women of the Year.[4][5][6] She went on to earn anMFA from theIowa Writers' Workshop at theUniversity of Iowa.[7]
In 2008, she married Matt Carlson, a professor of communications.[8] They have two daughters. The family lived in St. Louis, before moving to Minneapolis in 2018.[9][10] Sittenfeld and her husband split in 2025.[11]
Sittenfeld's first novel,Prep, which took her three years to write, was published in 2005. It is narrated from the perspective of Lee Fiora, a teenager fromSouth Bend, Indiana, who is accepted to attend Ault School, an eliteboarding school nearBoston, Massachusetts.[12]
Elissa Schappell, who wrote inThe New York Times Review of Books: "Sittenfeld's dialogue is so convincing that one wonders if she didn't wear a wire under her hockey kilt."The New York Times namedPrep one of their top five works of fiction for 2005.[13]Entertainment Weekly labelledPrep a "cult-classic" in a 2018 reassessment.[14]
Sittenfeld's second novel, calledThe Man of My Dreams, was published in May 2006 byRandom House. It follows a girl named Hannah from the end of her eighth grade year through her college years atTufts University and into her late twenties.
Sittenfeld's third novel, calledAmerican Wife (2008), is the tale of Alice Blackwell, a fictional character who shares many similarities with former First LadyLaura Bush.[15] In November 2011, it was announced that Red Crown Productions had begun work on a film version, with the adaptation written by Academy Award-nominated screenwriterRon Nyswaner.[16]
Sisterland was published on June 25, 2013.[17] The book's protagonist Kate is an identical twin with psychic powers.[18]
Eligible was published on April 19, 2016, byRandom House. It is a contemporary retelling ofPride and Prejudice set inCincinnati, Ohio.[19] In September 2017,ABC announced its commitment to make a TV pilot ofEligible with Sherri Cooper and Jennifer Levin to write it.[20]
You Think It, I'll Say It is a collection of short stories thatRandom House published on April 24, 2018.[21]
Rodham is analternate history political novel about the life ofHillary Clinton, published in 2020.[22] The novel diverges from reality at the point where Hillary chooses not to marryBill Clinton and enters political life as a single woman.[23]Rodham divided critics.[24]
A new novel,Romantic Comedy,[25] was published in April 2023.[26] The story follows Sally Milz, a late-nightsketch comedy show writer, and Noah Brewster, a pop star.[25]
A collection of 12 short stories published in 2025.
