Cheryl Strayed
Strayed was born in Spangler, Pennsylvania, the second daughter of Barbara Anne "Bobbi" (née Young; 1945–1991) and Ronald Nyland.When Cheryl was 12 her mother married Glenn Lambrecht, and the following year the family moved to rural Aitkin County, where they lived in a house that they built themselves on 40 acres.In March 1991, when Strayed was a senior in college, her mother, Bobbi Lambrecht, died suddenly of lung cancer at the age of 45.[6] Strayed has worked as a waitress, youth advocate, political organizer, temporary office employee, and emergency medical technician[7] throughout her 20s and early 30s, while writing and often traveling around the United States.[11] 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.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.[20] The next month Wild reached number 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list, a spot it held for seven consecutive weeks.[21] The paperback edition of Wild, published by Vintage Books in March 2013, spent 126 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list.[24] The film was a box office hit, grossing $52.5 million, and led to Academy Award nominations for both Witherspoon and actress Laura Dern, who played Strayed's mother.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.In November 2022 a tenth anniversary edition of Tiny Beautiful Things was published with six additional columns and a new preface by Strayed.[29] In 2017, she taught a writing workshop to students at BlinkNow Foundation's Kopila Valley School in Surkhet, Nepal; the conversations she had with girls at the school led her to make a short film on the topic of chhaupadi, a form of menstrual taboo which prohibits Hindu women and girls from participating in normal family activities while menstruating.