Curtis Sittenfeld has recently been getting a lot of attention for her new book "Prep." It has been on The New York Times Best Sellers List for two weeks and for good reason. Sittenfeld creates such an authentic teenager in her protagonist Lee, that it brings those angst-filled, self-conscious years of high school to life in a way that shows like the "OC" cannot. All of the uncertainty and awkwardness of coming of age is heightened by the snooty New England boarding school Lee attends and it makes for some great drama (for more info on the book, check out Sittenfeld’s website or read an excerpt from "Prep."

Curtis Sittenfeld is fairly new to D.C.; she arrived just two-and-a-half years ago when she was chosen to be the writer in residence at the St. Albans school. Now she works part-time at the school as a freshman English teacher and works on her writing. For a great opportunity to meet Sittenfeld, she will be reading at the Politics & Prose on Connecticut Avenue, Friday at 7 p.m. This would be a great time to get the book, if you don’t already have it, or just hear the words the way the author intended. (More information and events are available here. Somehow Sittenfeld made time in her busy schedule to catch up with DCist over the phone and answer a few questions.

VITALS:
Full Name: Elizabeth Curtis Sittenfeld
Age: 29
Hometown: Cincinnati
How long have you lived in Washington: 2 1⁄2 years
Occupation: Fiction Writer
Why did you move to D.C.?
I moved to be the writer in residence at St. Albans School.

Are you still the writer in residence?
No. That’s a one-year position. It ended in June of ’03, but since then I’ve taught freshman English part-time.

So how is it being on the other side of the prep school coin?
It’s a lot less stressful.

So it’s a little easier the second time around?
Yeah. I’m just not really involved in the drama, you know? It’s just totally different. Like it’s not even really comparable, but I get a kick out of the students. My students are very funny. I think that it would be very different if I were at a coed New England Boarding School. But, I mean, this is all boys, which is different, obviously, from my own experience. I spend about an hour a day on campus, so it’s not as if my life is shaped by St. Albans. But I would not work in a rural boarding school.

Did you plan on going back while you were there?
No. Oh, God no. I mean, the thing is, it’s funny to me. When I applied to work at St. Albans, I also applied to work at some college-level creative-writing/teaching positions and for some writing fellowships. So I didn’t really see myself as purposely seeking out a boarding school setting, or a prep school setting. It just happened to be like a writing fellowship at a prep school and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much I’ve liked St. Albans. It’s a great school. I have only the warmest feelings towards St. Albans.

And how long have you been able to call yourself a full-time writer? Are you a full-time writer? I am, I am, well, I still teach, so I don’t know. In the fall of ’99 I entered the Iowa Writer’s workshop. And I think that that’s when I started building my life around writing fiction.

Is that when you initially started putting ideas together for "Prep"? Yeah, exactly. It was in my first year at Iowa. And so, it was in January of 2000 that I started writing "Prep."

And, how is it now that the book is done, it’s published, it’s in bookstores and everybody’s loving it?
It’s good. I mean, I feel incredibly lucky. I think that, everything has turned out as well as I possibly could have hoped and I just feel really lucky for that.

In "Prep," Lee says that she learned everything she needed to know about attracting and alienating people. So, what did writing "Prep" teach you?
That’s an interesting question. Well, it was definitely the biggest project that I ever embarked on, let alone completed. So, just, the fact that I finished it I guess, made me sort of know, “OK, I can finish a large project and it can turn out pretty much the way that I wanted.” I literally didn’t know if I ever would finish it. There was just this stack of paper on my floor next to my desk that was getting higher and higher. Also, I would say that I’m really glad that I was hard on myself as a writer (ripped out scenes or revised sections). I mean already there are things that I would probably change if I could, but, I’m glad that I did the best job that I was able to at the time, because I feel like I can be lazy like anyone else, or I can kind of coast like anyone else, but I think it was a good lesson to me that if you put in your best energy that does count for something. Like sometimes you think, “Well, should I just do enough to complete a task or should I really knock myself out?” And I think that this was an illustration to me personally that it is worth it to knock yourself out.

I guess then that begs the question, what was the most difficult part of "Prep" for you to write? What was the hardest for you to actually get down on paper, to a place where you were happy with it?
It’s more like I did things that made it unnecessarily complicated for me. Like there was a section, it’s almost too specifically boring to describe, but I wrote a draft of chapter 3 ... which was merged into the same section as the last chapter. I don’t know what I was thinking. But, when I was at Iowa, I turned it in as a novella and it was just a mess untangling it. I mean, I wrote it knowing I would untangle it, but it was the stupidest thing ever. It was just so much trouble and it would have been so much better to just write a chapter from start to finish.

So then, who would you say is your favorite character from the novel?
I like Lee. I mean, some people do. Some people don’t. I like her on the whole. I kind of get a kick out of Dede. I find her annoying and yet endearing.

So, now that you are in D.C. and finished with "Prep," do you have plans for any upcoming work, are we going to see Lee appear anywhere else down the line?
I can imagine writing about Lee more, but I don’t have the desire to do so in the immediate future. But, I am working on another novel.

Is there anything about D.C. in there?
Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. I’m sure that D.C. will trickle into my work, but, it isn’t right now.

Well, I just had to ask. I guess we can move on to some D.C.-oriented questions now. But first, where were you before your residence?
I was in Iowa. I moved to Iowa in the fall of ’99, and then the program is two years, but I liked Iowa a lot, so I stayed for a third year. I worked part-time at a bookstore and free-lanced for magazines.

Do you have any plans of staying in D.C. for much longer?
I don’t know. I’m not sure what will happen to me or what I will do next.

What are you favorite things about D.C.?
Well, I think that people come to D.C. for a lot of different reasons, and I think that you meet people who are doing interesting things. I actually find it refreshing that there are relatively few fiction writers. Like when I lived in Iowa I could go to a party 4/5 of the people at the party were either writing poems or a novel and it gets to be a little too much. It’s really fun for a while, and then you just feel a little suffocated. I mean I know a few fiction writers, but there aren’t a ton. And that’s fine with me. My sister lives here, my aunt lives here. I have really good friends. I think it’s a really beautiful city in a lot of ways. I like how green it is. I appreciate that there are a lot of trees and there are pretty houses and it’s just a nice place to walk down the sidewalk.

Speaking of which, do you have any favorite spots? Favorite restaurants? Favorite bookstores?
I like Café Deluxe. I have fondness for it. I mean, the two restaurants closest to St. Alban’s are Café Deluxe and Cactus Cantina. I really like Café Deluxe and I like Cactus Cantina. And what else do I like? ... This isn’t very original, but I looove Whole Foods. Whole Foods is like my favorite place on Earth. ... I go to readings. I go to the Olsson’s that’s in Arlington. I go to Politics and Prose. I don’t go to museums as much as I should, of course. ... I haven’t been for a long time, but I like those places in Adams Morgan that have pizza that’s bigger than your head.