Candace Bushnell (born 1 December 1958) is an American author and columnist based in New York City. She is best known for writing a sex column that was turned into a book, Sex and the City, which became the basis of the immensely popular television series of the same name, and its subsequent film adaptation. Bushnell married New York City Ballet (NYCB) ballet artist Charles Askegaard on July 4, 2002.

Bushnell was born in Glastonbury, Connecticut. While attending high school there, she went to senior prom with nationally syndicated radio host Mike O'Meara, although he has denied repeatedly that anything happened. After dropping out of Rice University and attending New York University in the late 1970s, she was known throughout New York City as a party-goer and socialite. One of her favorite places was Studio 54. Later, she got a job as a columnist in the New York Observer.

In 1994, her editor-in-chief asked her if she wanted to write a column for the paper, and she accepted the job. She wanted a column based on the adventures she and her friends usually spoke about, and she called it Sex and the City.