Curtis Sittenfeld on Folk Music, Gossip, and Politics
The Author of Rodham Takes the Lit Hub Questionnaire
Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel, Rodham, is out now, so we asked her a few questions about reading, writing, and what she likes to watch.
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If you could choose a career besides writing, what would it be?
I’ve always had a lot of respect for doctors and nurses—for how they’re smart and hard-working and truly make a difference in individuals’ lives. And now of course it turns out they’re brave, too.
Who do you most wish would read your book?
As research, I read books by the four female senators who ran for president in this election: Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren. I suspect they might get a kick out of Rodham, and I’d love to know what they think I got right or wrong about women and politics.
What do you always want to talk about in interviews but never get to?
I do really enjoy hearing gossip about other writers.
Which non-literary piece of culture—film, tv show, painting, song—could you not imagine your life without?
There are a bunch of female singer-songwriters, most of whom straddle the folk/country line, that I’ve listened to off and on, but mostly on, for the past 25 years: Mary Chapin Carpenter, the Indigo Girls, Dar Williams, Brandi Carlile. (I don’t think Trisha Yearwood writes her own music, but I also really like her.) I return to their voices over and over for comfort, inspiration, and insight.
Is there a book you wish you had written?
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo because if I had, it would mean I was magnificently organized.
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Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld is available now from Random House.
Curtis Sittenfeld
Curtis Sittenfeld is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Prep, The Man of My Dreams, American Wife, Sisterland, and Eligible, and the story collection You Think It, I’ll Say It, which have been translated into thirty languages. Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post Magazine, Esquire, and The Best American Short Stories, of which she was the 2020 guest editor. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Time, and Vanity Fair, and on public radio’s This American Life.
