Curtis Sittenfeld, Bestselling Author, Visits with Literary Arts Students

February 25, 2026

When acclaimed novelist Curtis Sittenfeld visited Literary Arts students on February 25, 2026 for a wide-ranging conversation about writing, research, and rejection, she offered a candid look at what it really takes to build a literary career.

From the start, Sittenfeld emphasized that fiction is grounded in research as much as imagination. Drawing on her background as a journalist, she explained that she rarely invents details she can verify. “If there’s something I don’t know, I actually don’t make it up,” she said. For novels set in places like the White House or behind the scenes at Saturday Night Live, she studied schedules, floor plans, and conducted interviews to ensure authenticity. “I do a lot of research to write fiction,” she said. “Even for a short story.”

Curtis Sittenfeld (left), bestselling author, with Literary Arts instructor, Kevin Lally

When asked by the students how she decides whether an idea becomes a short story or a novel, Sittenfeld said longevity is key. “I’ll spend two years easily writing a novel,” she noted. “It has to be something that I think is incredibly interesting, that I won’t get bored with.” Sometimes, she added, ideas that seem oddly specific or obsessive can make the best fiction. “If you are fascinated by something and other people aren’t fascinated by it, sometimes that can be really good material.”

Sittenfeld also spoke about her novel American Wife, inspired by former First Lady Laura Bush. Sittenfeld found herself intrigued by Bush’s background and contradictions. When friends questioned her interest, she recalled thinking, “I could tell you; but it’s going to take 400 pages.” So she wrote the book.

Later, discussing her novel Rodham, Sittenfeld shared that the idea came from her then eight-year-old daughter, who suggested writing “a book about Hillary Clinton falling in love.” The result was an alternate-history story imagining Hillary Clinton choosing a different path.

Throughout the visit, Sittenfeld was frank about the less glamorous parts of writing. “Expecting writing to be primarily enjoyable is the expectation of a hobbyist rather than a professional writer,” she said. First drafts are often bad, and that’s normal. What matters is staying with the work. “It didn’t match up to my expectations, so I decided to stay with it for six months or four years.”

She also encouraged students to rethink rejection. In graduate school, she was told to aim for 100 rejections a year and to reframe submission as courage rather than failure. Even now, after publishing nine books, she can find harsh reviews online. One reader wrote, “I want to spend the rest of my life telling people how bad this book is.” Sittenfeld laughed: “Never have I been more flattered.”

Her advice to young writers was practical and honest: separate emotions from logistics, develop thick skin, and keep going. Taste is subjective, she reminded students. “You just have to be like, ‘I wrote this for the people who appreciate it, which is not everybody’.”

Literary Arts students were able to visit with not just a polished author, but also the disciplined, persistent worker behind the books. Curtis is someone who reads her manuscripts aloud, tracks daily word counts on the back of envelopes, and continues writing not because it’s always fun, but because she can’t imagine not doing it.

Curtis Sittenfeld is the bestselling author of seven novels: Prep, The Man of My Dreams, American Wife, Sisterland, Eligible, Rodham, and Romantic Comedy, which was picked for Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club. Her first story collection, You Think It, I’ll Say It, was published in 2018 and also picked for Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club. Show Don’t Tell is her second story collection. Her books have been selected by The New York Times, Time, Entertainment Weekly, and People for their “Ten Best Books of the Year” lists, optioned for television and film, and translated into thirty languages. Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and Esquire, and in the Best American Short Stories anthology, of which she was the 2020 guest editor. Her non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Time, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, Slate, and on “This American Life.” A graduate of Stanford University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Curtis has appeared as a guest on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” CBS’s “Early Show,” and PBS’s Newshour; five times been a Jeopardy! answer, and once been a Word Search puzzle. Sittenfeld is the parent of Lizzie Carlson (Visual Arts 2027).