I started writing it and I kept writing it and by page fifty-something in my essay about hiking the P.C.T. Most of the essays that I imagined would be in the book had been published, but I thought I’d write a few that would be originals. I began writing “Wild” in the spring of 2008 when I got this idea that I should try to publish a collection of my personal essays. I’m talking directly to the reader-one reader, the letter-writer, in front of many other readers-and I’m not pretending otherwise. But in the “Dear Sugar” column, the conceit is the opposite. I’m just going along telling a story and if readers happen to be listening or want to take a message from it, great. I do not at any point turn and specifically acknowledge them on the page (or the screen). In “Wild” and “Torch” and my personal essays, the conceit is that the readers are both there and not there. One gets to do that so seldom as a writer. One of the most fascinating things about writing the column has been the opportunity to explore the direct address in a public arena. In each column I am doing many things, but first and foremost I am writing a letter to one person about a problem he or she is having, which, by its very nature, is an intimate exchange. I think a lot of people assume Sugar’s anonymity granted me the freedom to write with that sort of intimacy, but I think it’s the form itself. I wouldn’t characterize the material in the “Dear Sugar” column as more intimate than my other nonfiction writing, but instead perhaps the voice is slightly more intimate. Your writing as Sugar is very intimate-in some cases, even more so than in your new memoir, “Wild.” Did you find yourself writing differently as Sugar? How will you deal with having a name attached to your writing as Sugar?
Because Sugar’s job is to bring things into the light.People who’ve read my writing as Cheryl Strayed figured out I’m Sugar, so it’s not so much a secret as it is an open secret. Because so many people know already anyway.Because my work as Sugar is a really important part of my work as Cheryl.Being anonymous felt to me like a form of literary performance art, not the way it would always be. Revealing my identity was how I conceived of my anonymity from the start. I’ve always drawn deeply from my life in my writing, so to do so as Sugar came naturally. It’s funny to think about that now because in retrospect I find it amusing that I ever believed I could sustain something like that for more than about fifteen minutes. I knew I’d write things about my life, but my very first thought was that my life would be this outlandish invention-that I wouldn’t be me, but instead someone more glamorous and snarky than I am. Was it always your intention to write Sugar that way? Readers have really responded to your style: advice via personal essay.
Sugar always tells people to trust their gut, so you could say from the very beginning, I was taking my own advice.
It paid nothing, I was busy enough writing and mothering my two young children, I didn’t have any expertise when it came to advice-giving. So when Steve asked I thought, “Why not?” I said yes within about thirty seconds of receiving his e-mail and then about thirty seconds later I thought of all the reasons I really should’ve said no. It just so happened that I was in the midst of this tiny lull in my writing life-only days before, I’d sent the first draft of my memoir “Wild” to my editor in New York, and I was waiting for her notes. My friend Steve Almond had been writing the column and he no longer wanted to do it, so he e-mailed me and asked if I’d like to take it over. An edited version of the exchange appears below. She recently took time to answer questions on anonymity, intimacy, and her relationship with her readers. On Tuesday night, at a coming-out party in San Francisco, Sugar formally introduced herself as Cheryl Strayed, a writer living in Portland whose new memoir, “ Wild,” will be the Rumpus Book Club’s pick for March. Her responses covered jealousy, the decision to have (or not have) children, drug addiction, and the unanswerable questions of life. She had children, a husband, student-loan debt, and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of open-minded, honest advice. Over the next two years, Sugar’s fans-a devoted readership that includes more than fifteen thousand Facebook and Twitter followers-learned bits about who she was.
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