You've already seen the Suggests for tonight's sold-out You Are Here event at the Hugo House. Unfortunately, we just got an e-mail from Hugo House's program director, Brian McGuigan, about a last-minute change: Seems the headliner of the evening, Cheryl Strayed, won't be reading tonight. Here's the e-mail:

Hello!

I have some good news and some bad news, and if you're anything like me, you like happy endings, so I'll deliver the bad news first.

Cheryl Strayed is unable to read at this evening's event, You Are Here, because she has pneumonia. She is currently in Portland resting and recuperating, and we are in the process of rescheduling her appearance at Hugo House for later in the year after the paperback release of WILD. Please stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks.

Now the good news: We are very excited to announce that we have wrangled possibly the most illustrious "understudy" in the literary world on extremely short notice, National Book Award-winning author and dear friend of Hugo House, Sherman Alexie.

Sherman will read brand-new work this evening and be available for book signing following the event. We expect his performance to be impressive as always, and we promise you will be glad that you are here with us tonight.

Thank you, and we'll see you this evening,
Brian

A reading from Sherman Alexie is always a cause for celebration—that's why I asked him to headline Verse Chapter Verse with Fly Moon Royalty at Neumo's next month, plug, plug—but I do expect that some of the ticket-holders who have been looking forward to Strayed reading new work might be disappointed to hear this. Which probably means that if you want to see Sherman Alexie on a bill with Jonathan Evison, Chris Abani, and country singer Joy Mills, you should stop by Hugo House to see if there are any standby tickets opening up tonight.