She then studied playwriting at the National Theatre School of Canada (leaving the program after one year) and then art history as well as philosophy at the University of Toronto.

She has contributed to periodicals such as Flare, London Review of Books, Brick, Open Letters, Maisonneuve, Bookforum, n+1, the Look, McSweeney's, and the New York Times.

Her books have been published internationally, including France, Italy, Germany, Spain, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark.

[citation needed] For the early part of 2008, Heti kept a blog called The Metaphysical Poll, where she posted the dreams people had in their sleep about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primary season, which readers submitted.

Heti was an actress as a child and as a teenager appeared in shows directed by Hillar Liitoja, the founder and artistic director of the experimental DNA Theatre.

In November 2013, Jordan Tannahill directed Heti's play All Our Happy Days Are Stupid at Toronto's Videofag.

The novel's main characters are based on real people: William Hickling Prescott and George Ticknor, although the facts of their lives are altered.

It was published by House of Anansi Press in Canada, Farrar, Straus & Giroux in the United States, and Éditions Phébus in France.

She describes it as a work of constructed reality, based on recorded interviews with her friends, particularly the painter Margaux Williamson.

In Fall 2014, Heti published a non-fiction book about women's relationship to what they wear, with co-editors Leanne Shapton and Heidi Julavits.

[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] Initially conceived as a non-fiction work, Heti explores the emphasis society places on motherhood and how women are judged regardless of their decision: "... a woman will always be made to feel like a criminal, whatever choice she makes, however hard she tries.