Just prior to the start of Winter Walk in Hudson at The Spotty Dog Books & Ale. Grapes of the Hudson Valley details the 200-year history of grape growing, breeding and winemaking in the Hudson Valley. The book includes information on how to make wine, prune vines and establish a vineyard. Casscles is the winemaker at the Hudson-Chatham Winery in Ghent, N.Y, and we will be offering a tasting of Hudson-Chatham wines during the event, plus specials on the wines by the glass.

Hudson native Jené Luciani will return home and bring the fabulous with her to The Spotty Dog Books & Ale for a signing of her new book, Get It!: A beauty, Style, and Wellness Guide to Getting Your "It" Together, at 3:00 on Saturday, December 3rd, prior to the start of Winter Walk. With it's beautifully designed and illustrated full-color interior, Get It! is the ultimate handbook for any woman looking to find style, beauty, and wellness within herself while getting exactly what she wants out of life, no matter what challenges she’s facing. It also offers easy, instructional tips, tricks, and strategies to help women Get Centered, Get Focused, Get Organized, Get Healthy, Get Fit, Get Beautiful, Get Youthful, Get Stylish, Get Sexy, and Get Peace and Happiness—in just minutes a day. The book was co-authored by Real Housewives of New Jersey's Jacqueline Laurita. Jene´ Luciani is a nationally acclaimed fashion journalist, lifestyle expert, tastemaker, TV personality, spokesperson, and author. She is the host of Lifetime Network’s Mom’s Personal Shopper series on the Lifetime Moms channel, and appears regularly on TODAY, The Wendy Williams Show, Dr. Oz, and The Meredith Vieira Show, to name a few. She has hundreds of published bylines to her name and is the author of the successful book The Bra Book: The Fashion Formula to Finding the Perfect Bra.

Volume is a FREE reading & music series featuring prose, poetry and a short DJ set. Find us every second Saturday at 7:00 pm at The Spotty Dog Books and Ale in Hudson, NY. Hallie Goodman's writing has appeared in Glamour, Condé Nast Traveler, Self, Redbook, Chronogram, and many newspapers. She has penned popular blogs for MSN, Fitness magazine, Yahoo Shine, and others. She was MARK NYFA Fellow and is a current MFA candidate at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Dani Grammerstorf French has an MFA in creative fiction from The New School and has been published in Playgirl, Broken Pencil, and others. She is the co-founder of the long-running Guerrilla Lit Reading Series in NYC. Dani lives in Hudson, NY with her husband and daughter. Anna Victoria is a writer and photographer based in Hudson, NY. She graduated from the University of Connecticut with a degree in English Literature, and currently uses her writing skills at Etsy, helping confused people use the internet. Annie Bielski is a writer, performer, and painter based in Hudson, NY, where she regularly organizes and hosts experimental comedy shows. Her first solo show opens in January 2017 at Paris London Hong Kong (Chicago). Followed by a DJ set by Andy French

Join us for the ongoing tradition of The Spotty Dog Holiday concert with Brian Dewan, Stephen Bluhm, and Emily Ritz Brian Dewan is an artist who works in many media, including art, music, audio-visual performances, decorative painting, furniture design, poetry and musical instrument design. Dewan writes, narrates and illustrates I-CAN-SEE Filmstrips, and collaborates with his cousin Leon Dewan in the electronic music duo Dewanatron. He has produced four albums of songs and concertized extensively as a solo artist, as well as having performed in various collaborations and as a sideman. His musical releases include: Tells The Story, The Operating Theater, Words Of Wisdom, and Ringing At The Speed Of Prayer. Dewan lives in Catskill, New York. Stephen Bluhm’s compelling music channels a myriad of time and style, including punk, songbook standards, synth pop, 60’s girl groups and folk. The captivating amalgam is pop music but driven by imaginative arty twists both distinctive and singular. His compelling theatricality is enriched with Bluhm’s captivating vocals and always catchy lyrical riffs. Stephen is a much-loved Hudson resident. Emily Ritz is 50% of Yesway, the creation of best friends Emily Ritz and Kacey Johansing. In a live setting, their voices melt together and the performances are intimate yet expansive. Often backed by Vibraphone player Andrew Maguire (Will Sprott, Thao, and Mirah). Their self-titled debut album is set for release on June 3rd. Their instrumentation is centered around vocal harmonies and two guitars yet “folk” seems like a inaccurate description. http://www.yeswaysings.com/ 7PM December 16 $7 at the door, partial proceeds to help benefit the Hudson Children's Book Fair

Mike Gamble is an adventurous guitarist and multi-instrumentalist whose work with electronic modes of composition are integrated endlessly into his setup. Gamble has spent the last 15 years immersed in the creative jazz, experimental rock and improvised music scene primarily in NYC, with close ties to New Orleans, Burlington, Boston, San Francisco and the Pacific Northwest. He has had the pleasure of recording over 20 albums and touring the states, Canada, and Europe with his critically-acclaimed guitar trio The Inbetweens, Counter Record’s Cougar, and alongside doom-metal originators Earth. His more recent collaborators have been prestigious drummer Bobby Previte, bassist Todd Sickafoose, guitar virtuoso Nels Cline, and PNW cellist Lori Goldston. Since relocating to Portland Mike has been running a monthly Audio/Visual series featuring local and touring artists, encouraging them to play rare solo, duo, and trio sets with his own audio-reactive projection setup. Among working on soundtracks, web-series, and branded content for small businesses, Gamble currently holds a position as an Audio Production instructor at Oregon State University and is the Artistic Director of Portland’s longstanding experimental music organization, The Creative Music Guild. “He has a brain that seems to work faster than other human brains - maybe more like a hummingbird or a spider. Music comes flying out. You just sit and listen to what he thinks of next” - Todd Sickafoose “Mike Gamble is dangerous in the best way” - Nels Cline “Mr. Gamble knows his way around a drone, but he also puts a lot of shifting harmony and texture in his one-man sketches, some of which — like “I’m on Your Side,” with its abstracted trip-hop beat — come across as thoughtfully developed compositions” Nate Chinen NY TIMES http://mikegamble.tumblr.com/ OTTO HAUSER Musician Otto Hauser is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and educator best known for his work as a drummer. In addition to solo performances, Hauser leads the ensemble Expectations and co-leads the trio Late Regulars. Over the past twenty years, he has performed on dozens of studio albums and hundreds of live shows across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia, working with diverse artists such as folk legends Kath Bloom, Vashti Bunyan, Mike Heron, Michael Hurley, and Bert Jansch; rockers The Black Crowes, Gary Louris, Philip Selway, Jeff Tweedy, and Tony Visconti; drum legends Steve Gadd and Bobby Previte; the unclassifiable Meshell Ndegeocello; and many contemporary indie and folk acts, including Nat Baldwin, Devendra Banhart, Richard Buckner, Espers, Josephine Foster, Fruit Bats, Cass McCombs, Juana Molina, Elvis Perkins, Sharon Van Etten, Vetiver, and Jonathan Wilson. Hauser endorses Istanbul Agop cymbals and C&C drums. Originally from Rochester, Hauser currently lives in New York's Hudson Valley. http://www.ottohauser.com/ TYLER WOOD Tyler Wood was born and raised in the northeast corner of the U.S. Although Presque Isle, Maine is known more for its potatoes and skidoos, he had a rich musical upbringing and nurturing teachers. His first instruments were piano, trumpet, and cardboard-box drums. When Tyler went off to college, his plan to study astrophysics was virtually eclipsed by the purchase of a real drum-set and a new-found love for hip-hop and recording. The campus had a dingy basement studio, where he encountered his first reel-to-reel tape machine and his first sampler. He began playing, recording, and mixing music of all kinds. A weekly restaurant gig paid the bills, and a hip-hop radio show kept the vinyl flowing in. But New York beckoned, as it will… Upon arriving in Brooklyn in 2006, Tyler was greeted by a bed-bug infestation and a furniture moving job. Not to be thwarted, he soon began to tour and record with acts such as Luke Temple, Glass Ghost, Chester French, and Joan As Police Woman. During this time, he also built a studio and a parallel career producing, recording, and mixing records. In 2009, Tyler reconnected with an old acquaintance. Immediately recognizing her brilliance, Tyler teamed up with fellow Mainer and fellow “T.W.” Therese Workman to form Oh My Goodness. Their debut album was released in 2011 and the follow-up is nearly complete. Tyler also has been traveling the world as chief audio engineer with the non-profit group Remix <--> Culture, recording remote video shoots of incredible folkloric music from Morocco to Brazil. Tyler currently resides in the Hudson Valley of New York, is bed-bug free, and continues to make, record, and mix music every day. http://www.tylerwood.com/

Celebrate with music, festive snacks and dancing. With music by: Steely Din (Pat Gruber and Sean Allison) and guest Alex Turnquist