Cheryl Strayed Talks Wild at UCSB

For Cheryl Strayed, 2012 was one hell of a year. Wild, the Portland-based writer’s memoir about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), alone, at age 26, while bearing the unbearable in every way ​— ​including doing it in a too-small pair of hiking boots ​— ​debuted at number seven on the New York Times best-seller list in March. Even before its release, Reese Witherspoon optioned it for a film, and, soon after Wild achieved best-seller status on its own, Oprah resurrected her book club to name it her first pick.

The year also saw Strayed outing herself as Sugar, beloved advice columnist on the website The Rumpus, known for sharing deeply personal stories in her responses. Tiny Beautiful Things, a compilation of Dear Sugar columns, published in July.

In both Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things, Strayed stands out for her disinterest in taking cover: She deals in naked honesty. Her grief over her mother’s death (which she writes about in Wild and drew from in her earlier novel, Torch); her divorce, infidelities, promiscuities, drug use, and staggering lack of preparation for the physical test of the PCT; her willingness to show you hers ​— ​and insist that she’s a worthy person anyway, goddammit ​— ​is offered without airbrush or saccharine. She sees no need for it. “People often think of honesty in opposition to kindness,” she told me. “I don’t.” She treats those who’ve sought her advice the same way. Funny and earnest, Sugar is a salve to snark.