Prep

Curtis Sittenfeld

Curtis Sittenfeld is an American novelist and short-story writer born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1975. She studied English at Stanford University and later attended the creative writing program at the University of Iowa. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked as a journalist and editor. Sittenfeld made her literary debut with Prep (2005), a coming-of-age novel about a middle-class teenager navigating the social hierarchies of an elite American boarding school. The book became a bestseller and established her reputation for perceptive portrayals of class, identity, ambition, and the complexities of adolescence. Her subsequent novels include American Wife (2008), a fictionalized account inspired by former First Lady Laura Bush; Sisterland (2013); Eligible (2016), a contemporary retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice; and Rodham (2020), an alternative-history novel imagining a different life for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Sittenfeld has also published the short-story collections You Think It, I’ll Say It (2018) and Help Yourself (2025). Her fiction often examines social expectations, relationships, privilege, and the private thoughts people conceal behind their public identities. Her work has appeared in publications including The New Yorker and The Atlantic.

Published

2005

Author

Curtis Sittenfeld