The best-selling author has been married to documentary filmmaker Brian Lindstrom since 1999.

Wild author Cheryl Strayed announces husband has been diagnosed with ‘fatal illness’

The best-selling author has been married to documentary filmmaker Brian Lindstrom since 1999.

By Kathleen Perricone

April 30, 2026 4:16 p.m. ET

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Brian Lindstrom and Cheryl Strayed. Credit:

Cheryl Strayed/Instagram

- *Wild* author Cheryl Strayed says her husband, Brian Lindstrom, “has been diagnosed with a serious, fatal illness.”

- As she focuses on her family, Strayed has canceled upcoming public appearances, including a writers' retreat in Massachusetts.

- Strayed and Lindstrom married in 1999 and have two children.

Cheryl Strayed is putting everything on hold for her family.

The best-selling author and podcast host announced on Thursday that her husband of 27 years, documentary filmmaker Brian Lindstrom, “has been diagnosed with a serious, fatal illness and for that reason I had to cancel my writing workshop at Kripalu and also my appearance at Hunter College this week.”

Strayed, who rose to prominence with her 2012 memoir *Wild* —which was adapted into a film that starred and was produced by Reese Witherspoon — was set to appear on April 30 at Hunter College in New York for a conversation with students in the creative writing program. The next day was to begin a workshop, *The Story You Have to Tell*, at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Massachusetts.

“My apologies to those of you who made plans to be there,” Strayed said in her Instagram post. “I simply cannot do anything but be with my family right now and see to our broken hearts. I ask that you hold us in your thoughts, prayers, light, and love.”

As she steps away to focus on her family, Strayed’s podcast, *Mind Over Mountain*, will continue to release new episodes. And she wanted followers to understand the context.

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“If it seems emotionally dissonant to see me posting cheerful clips from my podcast each week, now and over the coming several weeks, it is for me too,” she revealed. “Those interviews, which I loved doing, were recorded previously, in easier, happier times.”

Strayed and Lindstrom, who have two children, live in Portland, where he was born and raised.

As a documentary filmmaker, his work has focused on addiction, recovery, and the criminal justice system. Lindtrom’s latest project, *Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill*, tells the story of the folk-rock icon and features interviews with Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, David Crosby, and Graham Nash.

The couple previously collaborated on 2019’s *I Am Not Untouchable. I Just Have My Period*, a documentary about menstrual shaming in Nepal for the *New York Times*.

Cheryl Strayed and husband Brian Lindstrom.

Cheryl Strayed/Instagram

In 2021, Strayed shared a “Dear Sugar” column she had written years earlier about her marriage to Lindstrom.

Comparing him to her first husband, whom she wed at 19, she wrote: “There’s some sort of magic sparkle glue in the second that was missing in the first. Mr. Sugar and my ex have never met, but I’m certain if they did they’d get along swimmingly. They’re both good men with kind hearts and gentle souls.”

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Strayed, referring to Lindstrom as “Mr. Sugar,” continued: “In both marriages there have been struggles and sorrows that few know about. Mr. Sugar and I have been neck-deep together in the muckiest mud pit too. The only difference is that every time I’ve been down there with him I wasn’t fighting for my freedom and neither was he. In our nearly sixteen years together, I’ve never once thought the word *go*. I’ve only wrestled harder so I’d emerge dirty, but stronger, with him.”

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