Bushnell followed this with the international bestselling novels 4 Blondes (2001), Trading Up (2003), Lipstick Jungle (2005), One Fifth Avenue (2008), The Carrie Diaries (2010) and Summer and the City (2011).

[4] At age 19, Bushnell moved to New York City and sold a children's story (which was never published) to Simon & Schuster.

She continued writing and worked as a freelance journalist for various publications, struggling to make ends meet for many years.

In 1997, Bushnell's columns were published in an anthology, also called Sex and the City, and soon became the basis for the popular HBO television series of the same name.

The series aired from 1998 to 2004, and starred Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw, a socially active New York City sex and lifestyles columnist, a character whom Bushnell has said was her alter ego.

Bushnell went on to publish several international and The New York Times bestselling novels including Four Blondes, Trading Up, Lipstick Jungle and One Fifth Avenue.

In 2008, HarperCollins contracted Bushnell to write two books for young adults about Carrie Bradshaw's high school years.

From 2002 to 2012, Bushnell was married to Charles Askegard, a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet who was ten years her junior, and whom she had met eight weeks before.

[15] She found the experience disorienting, telling The Guardian, "When I got divorced, I couldn’t get a mortgage; I didn’t fit into a computer model.