An Essay of Mine Releases in a New Book

I’ve been meaning to tell you all that an essay of mine is included in a book released earlier this month.

Chicken Soup for the Soul, people. “The Magic of Mothers and Daughters.”

Yep. The cover is pink.

It’s an essay called “A Better View” I wrote about a trip Chicken Noodle and I took to Hawaii when she was little bitty. The first two sentences are, “As my two-year-old daughter and I arrive at the airport on a cold January morning, I am thinking that in the next ten hours practically anything could happen. If ever there is a time to fear one’s own child, it’s at the outset of a full day of air travel.”

It took so long to publish this one, the two-year-old can now read it herself!

You can purchase this book everywhere, I presume. The Chicken Soup folks say “Moms and daughters will laugh, cry, and find inspiration in this collection of entertaining, poignant, and heartwarming stories that remind them of their shared love, appreciation and special bond. A great gift for Mother’s Day.”

I wonder if I own the rights to my essay? There must be a contract I signed around here somewhere, perhaps under my taxes and these glitter sequins the chickens spread about my office while I was in Portland at the Oregon Tourism Conference.

They are quite lovely. Desk bling.

I’ll put “A Better View” on my Website soon. It won’t be pink.

“Chance of Sun: An Oregon Memoir” releases as e-book

“Chance of Sun: An Oregon Memoir” released today on amazon.com as an e-book! “A story of sex, drugs and camping” is now available for immediate download to your Kindle, Ipad, etc. for just $6.99. You can’t even get a decent martini for that.

Buy here

Here’s what it’s all about:

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

Buy as a real live paper book here

See book tour dates here

‘Chance of Sun’ Tour Dates Saturday and Monday

Looking forward to taking “Chance of Sun: An Oregon Memoir” and “Day Trips From Portland: Getaway Ides for the Local Traveler” to the Willamette Valley this weekend.

I’ll be at Grass Roots Books in Corvallis this Saturday the 11th at 2 p.m.

And at Linn Benton Community College for the Valley  Writers Series Valley Writers 2012 Monday the 13th at 3:30 p.m.

In between, I’m going to grab myself a little Oregon coast visit. I’m more than ready for a little time near the February ocean…

Rock and Roll, Babies – It’s Friday Night!

Tony Smiley Rocks the House on the Travel Oregon Blog

“Day Trips From Portland” at Eugene Home and Garden Show This Weekend

Woke up to a foot of snow.

Being the Oregon travel expert that I am, I declare today NOT a good day for a day trip.

“Thank you, Master of the Obvious,” Captain Daddy would say, if he were here.

As it were, he came blasting home from the fire station at 7:30 a.m., regarded the significant snow shoveling I’d already accomplished, announced, “Your next priority is the back deck,” kissed the chickens, and then vanished into thin (snowy) air again to tackle intrepid Captain Daddy tasks unknown.

This is what it’s like to be married to a fire captain, fyi. Hero to the masses, phantom to me. Not to mention good at delegating.

Had to cancel my scheduled book gig trip to Olympia, WA, for tomorrow. A bit too far to journey in so much fluffy slippery white stuff for my taste. I’m rescheduling that one for spring (Thanks, Gray Skies Reading Series, for understanding!).

Nevertheless, the chickens and I are still on track to venture to Eugene on Saturday to present my book “Day Trips From Portland: Getaway Ideas for the Local Traveler” at the Eugene Home and Garden Show. I am speaking at 3:30 this Saturday on the Willamette Stage – Room 1 – located off the North Lobby of the Lane County Convention Center.

I’ll bring “Chance of Sun: An Oregon Memoir” along for the ride, too (and maybe incite some actual sun—you never know).

This will be the first time I’ve traveled through snow to book gig and the first time I’ve taken the chickens along with me! Adventure awaits! Good thing I love traveling around Oregon so very much. What a great job I have.

Now, back to the driveway.

Ask Oregon from Travel Oregon

Meet Ask Oregon Ambassador Kim Cooper Findling on the Travel Oregon Blog

“Chance of Sun” in the Source Weekly and a reading at Deschutes Public Library

An Oregon Tale: Local author Kim Cooper Findling gets personal with her state and her past in her new book, in the Source Weekly.

Thank you, Mike Bookey – I’ll always worship you for comparing me to David Sedaris.

I’m reading at Deschutes Public Library this Sunday December 11 at 2 p.m. Hope to see you there!

“Day Trips From Portland” Black Friday Book Giveaway!

Wednesday’s “Day Trips From Portland” trivia Q and answer:

What city is home to the Oregon Film Museum?

Astoria

Congratulations to our book winner, Bill Baber!
Buy “Day Trips” at powells.com amazon.com and many book retailers! Happy Black Friday!

Me and “Chance of Sun” on Pacific Northwest Book Lovers

The Memoir Trip: On Book Touring and Opening Up Even More, by Kim Cooper Findling

on the Northwest Book Lovers website.

See Nestucca Spit Press for more info and here for tour dates.

This photo is me (center), my pops and my sis, Rogue River Trail, circa 1976. Good times!

“Day Trips From Portland” Trivia Q and Excerpt, Day Five

Today’s Trivia Question:

What Oregon city, filming site of The Goonies, Kindergarten Cop, Into the Wild, and many more movies, is now home to the Oregon Film Museum?

Send me your answer today! Last day of the trivia blitz–I’ll choose a book winner on Black Friday.

Yesterday’s Question and Answer:

Where in Oregon can one find a life-sized Glockenspiel?

Mt. Angel, where, rising 49 feet at the corner of Charles and Garfield streets in the center of town, the Glockenspiel celebrates the Native-German-Swiss-Bavarian heritage of the village and the city’s world-famous Oktoberfest held each fall.

Today’s Excerpt:

From the chapter:

The Slopes of Mt. Hood

Wy’east

The Multnomah Indian tribe called Mt. Hood Wy’east. In one version of the legend, two sons of the Great Spirit Sahale fell in love with the beautiful maiden Loowit. But she couldn’t decide who to choose. The two braves, Wy’east and Klickitat, burned forests and villages in their battle over her. Sahale became enraged and destroyed the three lovers. He erected three mountain peaks to mark where each fell—Mount St. Helens for Loowit, Mt. Hood for Wy’east, and Mount Adams for the mourning Klickitat.

On this day that I’ll be driving over the Cascade Range in a blustery storm, it’s appropriate to think of our mountains as angry lovers. Happy Thanksgiving to all, and safe Oregon travels!

Day Trips From Portland: Getaway Ideas for the Local Traveler.” Read More. Purchase.