She is the author of the novels The Last Samurai (2000) and Lightning Rods (2011) and the short story collection Some Trick (2018) and, in collaboration with the Australian journalist Ilya Gridneff, has written Your Name Here.

[2] DeWitt grew up primarily in Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador[3]), as her parents worked in the United States diplomatic service.

She held a variety of jobs while struggling to finish a book, including dictionary text tagger, copytaker, Dunkin' Donuts employee, legal secretary, and working at a laundry service.

In 1999, DeWitt had completed another novel, Lightning Rods, and later signed a contract for it with Miramax Books in 2003, but it remained unpublished and in limbo.

[11] Her short story "Climbers", which explores artistic ideals and commercial realities of the writing life, was published in Harper's Magazine November 2014.