Candace Bushnell is an American author, journalist and television producer. She is best known for Sex and the City (1996), which inspired the HBO series of the same name. Other notable books include 4 Blondes (2000) and Lipstick Jungle (2005). In 2006, she received the Matrix Award for books and the Albert Einstein Spirit of Achievement Award.
Candace Bushnell was born in Glastonbury, Connecticut, the daughter of Calvin L. Bushnell and Camille Salonia. Her father contributed to the Apollo space missions with his invention of the hydrogen fuel cell. She traces her ancestry to Francis Bushnell, an early English settler. She attended Glastonbury High School, where she was known for her lively personality, and later studied at Rice University and New York University.
At the age of 19, Bushnell moved to New York City. She sold a children's story to Simon & Schuster, but continued to work as a freelance journalist to support herself. In 1993, Candace began writing for the New York Observer, and in 1994, she started the humorous "Sex and the City" column.
She later said that the character of Carrie Bradshaw was her alter ego. "I've been 'Carrie' all my life," Bushnell said in an interview.
In 1996, her columns were published as Sex and the City, which became a bestseller. HBO adapted the book into the television series Sex and the City (1998–2004), followed by two feature films in 2008 and 2010.
In 2000, Bushnell published 4 Blondes, a novel about the romantic lives of four New York women. Trading Up followed in 2003, focusing on the fashion industry and social climbing. In 2005, Lipstick Jungle, about the lives of powerful career women, was adapted into an NBC series (2008–09).
Her novel One Fifth Avenue (2008) focuses on the residents of a prestigious Manhattan apartment building. She later wrote two young adult novels, The Carrie Diaries (2010) and Summer and the City (2011), which follow the teenage years of Carrie Bradshaw. The Carrie Diaries was adapted into a television series that aired on The CW from 2013 to 2014.
Bushnell's later works include Killing Monica (2015) and Is There Still Sex in the City? (2019), which revisits dating and friendship after the age of fifty.
Candace Bushnell continues to live in Manhattan.
