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"  You might know Cheryl Strayed as the author of Wild, this year&amp;#039;s Eat, Pray, Love. Recently, she was revealed as the anonymous sage behind the wildly popular &amp;quot;Dear Sugar&amp;quot; advice column on the literary website The Rumpus. So far, Strayed&amp;#039;s uncompromising but loving advice to stutterers, suicidal moms, and others has more than 2 million page views. This month, Tiny Beautiful Things, a collection of her columns, hits shelves. You once wrote, &amp;quot;Technically, I&amp;#039;m totally unqualified for this gig.&amp;quot; What did you mean? My concept of an advice giver had been a therapist or a know-it-all, and then I realized nobody listens to the know-it-alls. You turn to the people you know, the friend who has been in the thick of it or messed up \u2014 and I&amp;#039;m that person for sure. What has surprised you? I thought this would be a way for me to be snarky and funny, but I became profoundly, emotionally engaged with the work. You&amp;#039;ve revealed your own experiences with drug use, infidelity, sexual abuse. Is it hard to be so open? Why bother if you&amp;#039;re not going to be vulnerable? I&amp;#039;ve written things that people could be judgmental about, and I&amp;#039;ve received maybe five [nasty] e-mails and thousands that said, &amp;quot;Thank you.&amp;quot; Do you miss the anonymity? No, that was hard. Sometimes friends would post a link to my column on Facebook and say, &amp;quot;You have to read it \u2014 it reminds me of you.&amp;quot; That was difficult because [of my] ego. I could never praise it. How many letters come in? I have about 5,000 in my inbox. Often people will write things they&amp;#039;ve never told anyone. There are more 28-year-old virgins than you would guess. Most want to have sex, but somehow find that &amp;quot;things never go in that direction,&amp;quot; or their potential partners are freaked out that they&amp;#039;re still virgins. Sex has flowed so naturally in my relationships that I&amp;#039;ve never had to grapple with [this]. I&amp;#039;ve put those letters on hold because I&amp;#039;m a bit stumped. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.marieclaire.com/culture/a7221/cheryl-strayed-interview/?click=rel>