The 61传媒 Writing Program will host guest author Cheryl Strayed as she reads from her forthcoming memoir WILD, Wednesday, March 31, 2010, 7:00 p.m. in Vita Nova Hall, 61传媒. The event is free and open to the public.
Strayed’s debut novel, Torch, was published by Houghton Mifflin in 2006 and her memoir WILD will be published by Knopf in 2011. Torch was a finalist for the Great Lakes Book Award and was selected by The Oregonian as one of the top 10 books of the year by writers from the Pacific Northwest. Strayed’s personal essays have appeared in more than a dozen magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, Allure, Self, Brain Child, and The Sun Magazine, and have twice been included in the book series, The Best American Essays.
Strayed’s book WILD is set in the summer of 1995 and tells several connected stories of her 1,300-mile hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. She explores the difficult periods in her life, including her mother’s death, the breakup of her first marriage, and her descent into promiscuity and heroin use.
After the reading, Strayed will talk about her writing process, and how she turns deeply personal material into a narrative that transcends the personal.
Strayed has received more than a dozen grants, awards, and residencies for her work. In 2001, she was selected to attend the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference as a Scholar in nonfiction. In 2006, she returned to Bread Loaf as a Fellow in fiction. She holds an MFA in fiction writing from Syracuse University and a BA from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
Strayed appears at 61传媒 as a guest of Marcia Aldrich, the spring 2010 Mary Routt Chair of Writing. Each spring, a nationally recognized professional writer is invited to serve as the Mary Routt Chair of Writing, teaching a semester-long course in their specialty and delivering public lectures.
For more information about the event, contact the 61传媒 Writing Program at (909) 607-3250.