Cheryl Strayed's debut novel, Torch, was published by Houghton Mifflin in 2006. Torch was a finalist for the Great Lakes Book Award and was selected by The Oregonian as one of the top ten books of the year by writers from the Pacific Northwest. Strayed's personal essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, Allure, Self, and The Sun, among others and have been selected twice for inclusion in The Best American Essays. Born in western Pennsylvania, raised in rural northern Minnesota, Strayed now lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and their two children.