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Biography
American

Cheryl Strayed

1968

Cheryl Strayed is the author of Wild (2012), a memoir about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail alone at twenty-six after the death of her mother, the dissolution of her marriage, and a period of heroin use — a book that became a massive bestseller, was adapted into a 2014 film starring Reese Witherspoon, and helped launch the modern memoir boom. She was also Dear Sugar, the anonymous advice columnist for The Rumpus (2010–2012), whose columns were collected in Tiny Beautiful Things (2012).

Past sales0
PeriodContemporary
NationalityAmerican
1. Biography

A short life of the author

Cheryl Strayed (b. 1968) was born Cheryl Nyland on 17 September 1968 in Spangler, Pennsylvania, and grew up in rural Minnesota. Her mother died of cancer at forty-five. In the aftermath, Strayed’s first marriage dissolved and she used heroin. She chose her surname herself — “strayed” — when she divorced. She studied at the University of Minnesota and holds an MFA from Syracuse University.

Life and Career

Torch (2006) — a novel about a family devastated by a mother’s death — was her fiction debut.

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (2012) — about her decision, at twenty-six, to hike 1,100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail alone, with no experience, carrying an absurdly heavy backpack she named “Monster” — became one of the best-selling memoirs of the 2010s. Reese Witherspoon optioned it before publication; the 2014 film earned Witherspoon an Oscar nomination. The book’s power lies in Strayed’s unflinching honesty about grief, self-destruction, and the physical act of walking as a form of recovery.

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar (2012) — collecting her anonymous advice columns for The Rumpus — is a masterwork of the advice genre. Her columns were raw, personal, and treated correspondents’ problems with moral seriousness and radical empathy. It was adapted into a Hulu series (2023) starring Kathryn Hahn.

Major Works and Themes

Strayed writes about grief, self-destruction, and the possibility of rebuilding a life. Her voice is direct, emotionally generous, and free of self-pity.

Key Works

  • Wild (2012)
  • Tiny Beautiful Things (2012)
  • Torch (2006)

Collecting Strayed

Torch (2006, Houghton Mifflin) — her scarcer debut — brings $30–$80. Wild (2012, Knopf) brings $15–$40.