We’ll spend the months of May through July studying an interesting, entertaining, and well-written memoir by Cheryl Strayed titled Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.

Wild was first published in 2012 and remains a popular memoir, with numerous sales to its credit.

Strayed’s life was falling apart after her mother’s death, a divorce, and her descent into drugs, when she made the impulsive decision to hike 1,000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State. She was not an experienced hiker, and she did it alone. Amazing!

The writing in this memoir has many lessons to teach us, including how to develop a structure suited to the story, the importance of minor characters and making them real, breathe life into the inanimate trail, write in scene even when she has no other people to interact with, capture painful moments, and much, much more.

Check out Cheryl Strayed’s website, where you can find a short clip from her appearance on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday.

Oregon Public Broadcasting produced a fabulous video that covers Strayed’s early life, her writing process, other books she has written, what Strayed is working on now, and the making of the movie Wild, which earned Reese Witherspoon an Oscar nomination. You can watch that video here.

Here is the reading and discussion schedule for Wild.

I look forward to studying this memoir with you.