See Cheryl Strayed tonight at Clowes

strayed 2I don’t need to tell you about Cheryl Strayed’s reading at 7:30 tonight on Butler’s biggest stage, the Clowes Memorial Hall auditorium. (You’ll be arriving early to make sure you get a good seat.)

I don’t need to tell you about her 2012 memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, which reached No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list. (You devoured it in a day. Then read it again. And again. Then you bought the same pair of REI boots that grace the cover.)

I don’t need to tell you that Oprah Winfrey loved Wild so much that she rebooted her Book Club. (Your consciousness is constantly attune with Oprah’s tastes, as all humans beings’ are.)

I don’t need to tell you that Wild has been optioned as a feature film starring Reese Witherspoon, set for release later this year. (You’ll be there for the midnight showing wearing an 80-pound backpack.)

I don’t need to tell you that Cheryl Strayed anonymously penned the colossal Dear Sugar advice column for The Rumpus before revealing her identity on Valentine’s Day two years ago. (You knew it all along, you beautiful gumshoe.)

I don’t need to tell you that she once told an interviewer “the most important thing for aspiring writers is for them to give themselves permission to be brave on the page, to write in the presence of fear.” (You’ve got her sage advice tattooed on the palm of your writing hand. Such big hands you have.)

I don’t need to tell you that she inspired world-famous Write Like A Motherfucker coffee mug, the preeminent swag at AWP two years running. (You use your’s so often it just says rite like a otherfucker now, but you roll with it.)

I don’t need to tell you Cheryl Strayed will be leading a workshop in the French Alps this June as part of Butler’s Chamonix Summer Writing Program. (You’re already signed up for her now-full class, or you are unable to leave the United States because of your nefarious past–in either case, you have told everyone you know to register for Chamonix sessions with Butler’s other kickass faculty members: Lynda Barry, Ann Hood, Terrance Hayes, Dan Chaon, Erin Belieu, and Michael Dahlie.)

I don’t need to tell you anything because some promos write themselves. (You humored me anyway because you’re bored at work.)