You are hereAuthor Event: Cheryl Strayed - Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Author Event: Cheryl Strayed - Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Start: 05/08/2012 6:00 pm

Author Reading
Cheryl Strayed, author of
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Tuesday, May 8th
6pm at the Hood River County Library

Co-Sponsored by the Hood River County Library

Waucoma Bookstore and the Hood River County Library are hosting author Cheryl Strayed for a book reading at 6pm on Tuesday, May 8th at the Hood River County Library. Strayed will be discussing her new book Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. Wild is a powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.

About the Book
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and to do it alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than “an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise.” But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone.

Strayed faces down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

Deborah Recommends Wild:
Wild is the type of book that snags you from the beginning, and keeps you engaged the whole way through as Cheryl Strayed takes you along on her inspiring solo journey on the Pacific Crest Trail. It was a bold move considering that she had no backpacking experience prior to her trip, but in the years following her mother's death and the subsequent dissolution of her family, Cheryl was no stranger to bold moves. The external and internal challenges she endures while on the trail are balanced with stories about her life leading up to her brave decision to hike alone for months in the rugged western wilderness. This is a story of survival in the most comprehensive form of the word, and it is one that will stick with you long after you finish reading.

-Deborah
Waucoma Bookstore

Book Trailer: Wild by Cheryl Strayed

About the Author
Cheryl Strayed is the author of three books: WILD, a memoir (Knopf, 2012), TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS, a selection of her "Dear Sugar" columns from TheRumpus.net (forthcoming from Vintage, July 2012), and TORCH, a novel (Houghton Mifflin, 2006). WILD will also be published in Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Taiwan, and Italy. WILD has been optioned for film by Reese Witherspoon's production company, Pacific Standard. Strayed's debut novel, TORCH was a finalist for the Great Lakes Book Award and was selected by The Oregonian as one of the top ten books of the year by writers from the Pacific Northwest. Strayed has written the "Dear Sugar" column on TheRumpus.net since March 2010. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post Magazine, Vogue, Allure, Self, The Missouri Review, Brain, Child, Creative Nonfiction, Water~Stone Review, The Sun and elsewhere. The winner of a Pushcart Prize as well as fellowships to the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the Sewanee Writers' Conference, her essays and stories have been published in THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS, THE BEST NEW AMERICAN VOICES, and other anthologies. She holds an MFA in fiction writing from Syracuse University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota. She's a founding member of VIDA: Women In Literary Arts, and serves on their board of directors. Raised in Minnesota, Strayed now lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, the filmmaker Brian Lindstrom, and their two children.