Carol Strickland earned a Ph.D. in American literature from the University of Michigan. She has taught writing and literature at various universities but never included Margaret Fuller's work in course syllabi. Her novel, Sparks Fly Up: The Lost Story of Margaret Fuller is an attempt to compensate for omitting a giant of American intellectual history.

Strickland has contributed features to newspapers including The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Christian Science Monitor and to magazines including Art in America, Art and Antiques, and Momus.

Her introduction to art history, The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to the Present, has sold more than 400,000 copies in three editions since 1992. The Annotated Arch: A Crash Course in the History of Architecture is often used in college courses. Other books include The Illustrated Timeline of Art History and The Illustrated Timeline of Western Literature.

Strickland's first historical novel The Eagle and the Swan is set in the late Roman Empire of sixth-century Constantinople.