“Chance of Sun: An Oregon Memoir” Debuts Next Week

My book “Chance of Sun: An Oregon Memoir” releases Monday July 18!

It’s a story of sex, drugs and camping.

From the website of the publisher, Nestucca Spit Press:

In her debut as an author, Kim Cooper Findling’s Chance of Sun: An Oregon Memoir, unfolds the story of an Oregon girl coming of age in the 1970s and 80s, navigating her way through pick-up trucks, dive bars, higher education and backwoods trails before finding a place she belongs.

Beginning with her childhood in Coos County, Findling relates a rural upbringing spent walking beaches and hiking in the woods with her forester father, attending summer camp just over the hill from the Oregon Country Fair, road-tripping to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with schoolmates, and learning about the fickleness of love in campgrounds, beer joints and on the University of Oregon campus. Yet, following a move to Oregon’s biggest city after college, Findling lost her way and her connection to Oregon’s landscape, becoming caught up in the drugs and booze that flowed so freely in Portland’s restaurant scene. But it was Oregon that helped Findling find herself again later, this time on the east side of the mountains, where she found clarity in High Desert trails and a wide-open sky, as well as life’s most grounding phenomenon—love.

In 23 essays set over 20 years, Findling traces her own coming-of-age story against the beauty and complexity of the Oregon landscape. Nestucca Spit Press Publisher Matt Love writes,“In Chance of Sun, Kim Cooper Findling presents a fresh and distinct literary voice. I might even call it sexy. At long last we have a memoir by someone that captures the fantastically loose and earthy spirit of growing up in Oregon during the 1970s and 80s.”

See more reviews here.

Tour Dates:

Aug 3  Blackbird Wine Shop            4323 Northeast Fremont Street Portland 7 p.m.

Aug 5-7          Willamette Writer’s Conference      Portland Airport Sheraton Hotel Time TBA

Aug 22             Powell’s on Hawthorne        Portland                     7:30 p.m.

Sep 3              Garibaldi Historical Museum           Garibaldi        2 p.m.

Oct 13           Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Portland

Oct 15             The High Desert Museum                Bend                2 p.m.

Oct 29            The Book Parlor               Burns        Noon

Dec 3            Books By The Bay         North Bend      1 p.m.

2012

January 19    Grey Skies Reading Series  Swing Cafe and Wine Bar  Olympia, WA   8 p.m. CANCELED to be rescheduled

January 21 Eugene Home and Garden Show 3:30 p.m.

Feb 11 Grass Roots Books Corvallis  2 p.m.

Feb 13    Linn Benton Community College    3:30 p.m.

Mar. 1         North Bend Public Library      North Bend     7 p.m.

Apr 20            Homeword Bound      Portland       TBA

August 3-5  Willamette Writers Conference

More to come!

Chance of Sun is available at:

Powell’s Books

Between the Covers Books, Bend

Ekahni Books, Manzanita

Paulina Springs Books, Sisters

Multnomah County Libraries

Grass Roots Books, Corvallis

Annie Bloom’s Books, Portland

Broadway Books, Portland

nestuccaspitpress.com

To read more or buy, see www.nestuccaspitpress.com or www.kimcooperfindling.com.