Cheryl Strayed is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling memoir Wild. At age 22, Strayed found herself shattered by two major life events: her mother’s sudden death from cancer and the end of her young marriage. After hitting rock bottom, Strayed decided to confront her emotional pain by trekking over 1,000 miles along the Pacific Crest Trail. Wild tells the amateur hiker’s tale, peppered with the colorful characters she encounters along the way, as she struggles to find inner peace and stability. Cheryl’s story inspired Oprah Winfrey to revive her tremendously popular book club, with Wild as its inaugural s...
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Cheryl Strayed
Author of Best-Selling Memoir "Wild"; Inspired Oscar-Nominated Film Starring Reese Witherspoon & Laura Dern
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Cheryl Strayed is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling memoir Wild. At age 22, Strayed found herself shattered by two major life events: her mother’s sudden death from cancer and the end of her young marriage. After hitting rock bottom, Strayed decided to confront her emotional pain by trekking over 1,000 miles along the Pacific Crest Trail.
Wild tells the amateur hiker’s tale, peppered with the colorful characters she encounters along the way, as she struggles to find inner peace and stability. Cheryl’s story inspired Oprah Winfrey to revive her tremendously popular book club, with Wild as its inaugural selection for the launch of Oprah’s Book Club 2.0. The story also inspired producer and actress Reese Witherspoon to bring Wild to the big screen in 2014.
Cheryl’s personal struggles and story of survival motivate and inspire crowds. She is a dynamic speaker, and her moving rhetoric resonates with audiences of all sizes.
Strayed is also the author of The New York Times bestseller Tiny Beautiful Things, a collection of her widely popular Dear Sugar columns forTheRumpus.net, and the critically acclaimed novel Torch, a finalist for the Great Lakes Book Award. Her writing has appeared in The Best American Essays, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, Vogue, Allure, The Missouri Review, Creative Nonfiction, The Sun and elsewhere. Her books have been translated into 26 languages around the world.
Cheryl Strayed holds an MFA in fiction writing from Syracuse University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota. She is a founding member of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, and serves on its board of directors.
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Testimonials
Cheryl was one of the best speakers I have ever seen at Stanford or anywhere else, and this was something I heard again and again from faculty, deans, and students for many days. What struck people the most, especially students, was the combination of smarts and genuine, disarming warmth. What struck me most was how she elevated the whole room, and as corny as this might sound, it felt by the end of the evening that we had all received a blessing, in that old sense of an authorization and empowerment.
What an absolute delight it was hosting Cheryl at our college. She couldn’t have been classier – she made the students feel completely at ease even though they were meeting their ‘idol.’ She was warm, compassionate, articulate and really listened to them. And of course the public interview and book signing was a huge success. Cheryl stayed until the very last person in the line got his book signed and even gave everyone a hug before she got back in her car.
Our event with Cheryl Strayed was beyond words—AMAZING! She was incredibly kind, genuine, authentic, and caring. We are so very grateful that she was willing to share her personal journey with our community of learners. She touched so many lives today—beyond what she will probably understand. What she shared was such a gift. I couldn’t be more happy with hosting her on campus.
Cheryl’s event was a huge, huge success. It was truly amazing. She was gracious, funny, inspiring, and generous with the students at the school visit and with her fans that evening. It was one of the best nights we’ve hosted in a long, long time. Truly a special evening.
Topics
Topics
A Wild Life
In her memoir Wild Cheryl Strayed describes the sometimes harrowing, other times hilarious stories behind her solo wilderness trek on the Pacific Crest Trail and the personal journey that led her there. In this talk, Strayed will discuss what she learned about how we bear the unbearable, how we move from grief and anger to acceptance, and how we keep walking even when it seems impossible to stand.
The Sweet Life: Stories from “Dear Sugar”
In 2012, Cheryl Strayed revealed that she was the voice behind the popular (and unorthodox) online advice column “Dear Sugar” on TheRumpus.net. In this talk, Strayed will share stories about what she’s learned in the course of encouraging readers to live large, love hard, and be brave enough to break their own hearts.
Rules to Write By
In this lecture about the less-craft oriented elements of writing, Cheryl Strayed will share the “rules” and practices she’s learned to live by and rely upon as a writer—from how to write with guts to keeping the faith when it seems all has failed.
Videos
Videos
Cheryl Strayed: Love, Life and Lessons Learned in “Wild”
Radical Sincerity: Cheryl Strayed at TEDxConcordiaUPortland
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