What’s it like when Oprah picks your book?
(If you can’t see the audio player, you’ll find the interview with Cheryl on SoundCloud here.)
Cheryl Strayed is a New York Times bestselling writer. She’d already found an audience for her memoir Wild before Oprah called her mobile phone one day and told Strayed she’d chosen Wild as the first book in her new book club.
Wild is a profound book about Strayed’s decision to hike 1100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail across west coast of the US. She was as physically unprepared for the solo trek as she was emotionally unprepared for the death of her mother, the life shattering event that led her to set off on what became a life-changing adventure.
It’s a book about grief, perseverance, redemption, second chances and reinvention. Strayed tells her tale fearlessly, although it involves examining her drug use, reckless sex life, poverty, and emotional distress.
Red wines in hand, Cheryl Strayed and Steven Lewis
The fearlessness is evident also in Tiny Beautiful Things, the collected columns Strayed wrote as as the agony aunt Dear Sugar. Famously, among aspiring writers at least, she advised one correspondent with literary ambitions to just… write like a motherfucker.
I don’t feel often enough that reading a particular book was a privilege but it was a privilege to read both Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things; and it was a privilege to sit down with Strayed over a red wine at the Sydney Writers’ Festival to talk to her about both books.
Authors in any genre would benefit from Strayed’s commitment to the truth. I’d love to hear what you think of the interview and, if you’re willing to play Dear Sugar, yourself, what advice would you give an aspring author?
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