Cheryl Strayed is an American memoirist, novelist, and essayist. The author of
four books, her award-winning writing has been published widely in national
magazines and anthologies. Strayed's first book, the novel Torch,
was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in February 2006 to positive
critical reviews. Torch was a finalist for the Great Lakes Book Award and
selected by The Oregonian as one of the top ten books of 2006 by writers living
in the Pacific Northwest. In October 2012, Torch was re-issued by Vintage
Books with a new introduction by Strayed.
Strayed's second book, the memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest
Trail was published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf on March 20, 2012,
and has been translated into more than forty languages. The week of its
publication, Wild debuted at number 7 on the New York Times Best Seller list in
hardcover non-fiction. In June 2012, Oprah Winfrey announced that Wild was
her first selection for her new Oprah's Book Club 2.0. The next month Wild
reached number 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list, a spot it held for
seven consecutive weeks. The paperback edition of Wild was published by Vintage
Books in March of 2013, where it has spent 126 weeks on the New York Times
Best Seller list. The book has also been a bestseller around the world--in the
UK, Germany, Australia, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Denmark and elsewhere. Wild
won the Barnes & Noble Discover Award and the Oregon Book Award.
In July 2012, Vintage Books published Strayed's third book: Tiny Beautiful
Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar. The book debuted in the
advice and self-help category on the New York Times Best Seller list at number 5
and it has also been published internationally. Tiny Beautiful Things:
Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar is a selection of Strayed's popular
"Dear Sugar" advice column, which she wrote for no pay for the literary web
site The Rumpus from 2010 to 2012. Strayed's fourth book, Brave Enough was
published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf on October 27, 2015 and in the
United Kingdom a week later by Atlantic Books . It debuted in the advice and
self-help category on the New York Times Best Seller list at number 10.
Early life Strayed was born in Spangler,
Pennsylvania, the daughter of Barbara Anne "Bobbi" and Ronald Nyland. At age
six, she moved with her family to Chaska, Minnesota. Her parents divorced
soon after. At age 13, she moved with her mother and stepfather Glenn
Lambrecht, along with her two siblings, Karen and Leif, to rural Aitkin County,
where they lived in a house that they had built themselves on 40 acres. The
house did not have electricity or running water for the first few years.
Indoor plumbing was installed after Strayed moved away for college. She
later re-connected with her half-sister from a previous relationship of her
father. In 1986, at age 17, Strayed graduated
from McGregor High School in McGregor, Minnesota, where she was a track and
cross country runner, cheerleader, and homecoming queen. She loosely based the
fictional Coltrap County in her novel Torch on McGregor and Aitkin County.
Strayed attended her freshman year of college at the University of St. Thomas
in St. Paul, but by her sophomore year, she transferred to the University of
Minnesota in Minneapolis, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree,
graduating magna cum laude with a double major in English and Women's Studies. In
March 1991, when Strayed was a senior in college, her mother, Bobbi Lambrecht,
died suddenly of lung cancer at age 45. Strayed has described this loss as her
"genesis story". She has written about her mother's death and her grief in each
of her books and several of her essays. Strayed worked as a waitress, youth
advocate, political organizer, temporary office employee, and emergency medical
technician throughout her 20s and early 30s, while writing and often traveling
around the United States. In 2002, she earned a Master of Fine Arts in fiction
writing from Syracuse University, where she was mentored by writers George
Saunders, Arthur Flowers, Mary Gaitskill, and Mary Caponegro.
Career In addition to her four books Wild, Tiny
Beautiful Things, Brave Enough, and Torch, Strayed has published essays in
various magazines, including The Washington Post Magazine, The New York
Times Magazine, Vogue, Tin House, The Missouri Review, and The Sun Magazine.
Her work has been selected three times for inclusion in The Best American
Essays. Strayed was the guest editor of The Best American Essays 2013. She won a
Pushcart Prize for her essay, "Munro Country," which was originally published
in The Missouri Review. The essay is about a letter Strayed received from
Alice Munro, when she was a young writer and Munro's influence on Strayed's
writing. Strayed wrote the popular advice column
"Dear Sugar" on The Rumpus. She began writing the column in March 2010, when
the column's originator Steve Almond asked her to take over for him. She
wrote the column anonymously until February 14, 2012, when she revealed her
identity as "Sugar" at a "Coming Out Party" hosted by the Rumpus at the Verdi
Club in San Francisco. A selection of her columns have been collected in her
bestselling book Tiny Beautiful Things. Her memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on
the Pacific Crest Trail details her 1,100-mile hike on the Pacific Crest
Trail from the Mojave Desert to the Oregon-Washington border and tells the
story of the personal struggles that compelled her to take the hike. Three
months before her memoir was published, actress Reese Witherspoon optioned it
for her company, Pacific Standard. Nick Hornby adapted Wild for the screen, with
Witherspoon portraying Strayed in the film.
In June 2012, Wild was chosen as the inaugural selection for Oprah's Book
Club 2.0, which is a relaunch of Oprah's Book Club, which ended in 2011. Oprah's
Book Club 2.0 uses online social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Winfrey
discussed Wild in her video announcement of the new club. Winfrey interviewed
Strayed for a two-hour broadcast of her show Super Soul Sunday on her OWN
Network. Strayed is also a public speaker and
often gives lectures about her life and books.
Strayed co-hosts the Dear Sugar podcast with Steve Almond. The podcast is
produced by WBUR, Boston's National Public Radio affiliate.
Film adaptation of Wild The film adaptation of Wild was released
on December 3, 2014 in the United States with actress Reese Witherspoon starring
as Strayed. The film was directed by Jean-Marc Vallée and distributed by Fox
Searchlight Pictures. Witherspoon optioned Wild for film with producer
Bruna Papandrea for their production company, Pacific Standard, a few months
before Wild was published. The book was adapted for the screen by Nick Hornby.
In October 2013, the film went into production with Witherspoon in the lead.
The cast includes Laura Dern, Strayed's daughter Bobbi Strayed Lindstrom, Gaby
Hoffmann, Thomas Sadoski, Michiel Huisman, and Kevin Rankin among others.
Personal life Strayed married filmmaker Brian
Lindstrom in August of 1999. They have two children and live in Portland,
Oregon. Her daughter, Bobbi Strayed Lindstrom, played the younger version of
Strayed in the film adaptation of Wild. Strayed married Marco Littig in 1988, a
month before her 20th birthday. They divorced in 1995.
A long-time feminist activist, Strayed worked in her twenties as a political
organizer for the Abortion Rights Council of Minnesota, which is now
called Minnesota NARAL, and also for Women Against Military Madness, a
feminist peace and justice nonprofit organization in Minneapolis–Saint Paul.
She served on the first board of directors for Vida: Women in Literary
Arts and has been active in many feminist and progressive causes.
Published works Strayed, Cheryl. Torch, Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, 336 pages. ISBN 978-0618472178 Strayed, Cheryl. Wild: From Lost to
Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Knopf, 336 pages. ISBN 978-0307592736
Strayed, Cheryl. Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar,
Vintage Books, 368 pages. ISBN 978-0307949332
Strayed, Cheryl. Torch, reissue with new introduction by the author, Vintage
Contemporaries, 432 pages. ISBN 978-0345805614
Strayed, Cheryl. Brave Enough, Knopf, 160 pages. ISBN 978-1101946909
References External links
Official website Dear Sugar Radio
"Dear Sugar" advice column Cheryl Strayed reviews and links on
Biographile "Munro County" published in The Missouri
Review The Most Inspiring Quotes from Wild