Mike Copperman in conversation with Margaret Malone
The Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe is excited to welcome writer Michael Copperman to celebrate the launch of their book, Seeking Kenny. Coppermen will be joined in conversation by Margaret Malone.
About the book:
Kenny Cox devoted his life to wrestling: winning ten Oregon championships in collegiate, freestyle, and Greco-Roman, and five junior national championships. But when his college career came to a close, Cox realized he wasn’t sure who he was or how to go about living his life. A few years later, he walked from Oregon to Mexico and back, and upon his return, sold his house and flew to Kauai, where he ventured deep into the wilderness and survived seventy days without supplies. Just weeks after reemerging from the wild, he died at the age of thirty-one.
Michael Copperman considers the life and untimely death of Cox, reconstructing memories of his former training partner with the help of Cox’s family, friends, fans, and fellow wrestlers. Seeking Kenny is, in part, an ode to a storied athlete. But it’s also a cautionary tale about the mental and bodily extremes Cox demanded for his achievements. Copperman asks what it means to live past one’s “glory days,” and what roles loss, grief, faith, and memory play when athletes leave pieces of themselves behind.
Mike Copperman
Michael Copperman's work has appeared in The Oxford-American, Guernica, The Sun, Creative Nonfiction, Boston Review, Salon, Gulf Coast, and in many other venues. He is the author of the memoir Teacher: Two Years in the Mississippi Delta, a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in Creative Nonfiction. His next book, Seeking Kenny, is about the extremes of the American subculture of wrestling as seen through the story of five-time national champion Kenny Cox’s pilgrimage deep into the wilderness of Kauai’s Na Pali Coast, and is forthcoming in June 2026 from University of Iowa Press.
