Caitlin Moscatello is a journalist and writer covering gender, reproductive rights, and politics. Her writing has appeared in New York Magazine's The Cut, Vanity Fair, TIME, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, O: The Oprah Magazine, and more. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and son. See Jane Win is her first book. “In this rousing debut, journalist Moscatello follows left-wing women who ran for American public office for the first time in the 2018 midterms…This optimistic and well-reported look at the post-Trump blue wave will inspire progressive readers.” --Publishers Weekly “Searching for a bright light in the Trumpian chaos, the former magazine editor made a decision: 'I am going to find diverse women who are running, for different levels of office, in different parts of the country, and I am going to follow their journeys to show the realities of running while female.'” --Vogue Magazine “If you were depressed about the 2016 election, See Jane Win is a balm—and a playbook.” --Jill Filipovic, author of The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness

Acclaimed singer-songwriter and longest-running Spotty staff member Amy Rigby's long-awaited memoir comes out October 8th. GIRL TO CITY follows one young woman's progression from Elton John fan in the Pittsburgh suburbs to Manhattan art student; from punk show habitué to fledgling musician with bands Last Roundup and the Shams, to cult singer-songwriter who caused a sensation with 1996 debut solo album Diary Of A Mod Housewife, single "Dancing With Joey Ramone" and her latest "The President Can't Read." ADVANCE PRAISE FOR GIRL TO CITY: "...an instant classic." --Big Takeover "You can feel the distortion, smell the damp, see the clothes, hear the guitars." --Goldmine "It's a big season for music memoirs, especially by women...The question is: Will any of them turn out to be as good as Girl To City?" --Philadelphia Inquirer In celebration of Girl To City's publication, Amy will read, play, sing and sign the book. 8:30 PM No cover but consider buying a book or disc! Here's a little video for the book: https://youtu.be/UrMzdtfT6y4 And of course that Tom Petty Karaoke video filmed at Half Moon: https://youtu.be/JMQNv0Z7eOE

Volume is a FREE reading & music series featuring prose, poetry and a short DJ set. Every second Saturday at 7:00 pm at The Spotty Dog. Books are available for purchase and signing. This month's writers include: LELAND CHEUK is the author of three books of fiction, including The Misadventures of Sulliver Pong and No Good Very Bad Asian (forthcoming from C&R Press in November 2019). His work has appeared in Salon, Catapult, Joyland Magazine, and Literary Hub, among other outlets. He has been awarded fellowships at The MacDowell Colony, Hawthornden Castle, Djerassi, and elsewhere. He runs the indie press 7.13 Books and lives in Brooklyn. You can follow him on Twitter @lcheuk and at lelandcheuk.com. SHIRA DENTZ is the author of five books, including the sun a blazing zero and two chapbooks. Her writing appears in many venues including Poetry, American Poetry Review, Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day Series, and NPR. She’s been the recipient of the Academy of American Poets’ Prize, Poetry Society of America’s Lyric Poem Award, and the Poetry Society of America's Cecil Hemley Memorial Award. She serves as Special Features Editor at Tarpaulin Sky and lives in upstate NY. ELISSA ALTMAN is the author of the memoirs Motherland, Treyf, Poor Man's Feast, and the James Beard Award-winning narrative blog of the same name. Her work has appeared everywhere from Narrative Magazine and O: The Oprah Magazine to LitHub, Tin House, the Wall Street Journal, On Being, and the Washington Post, where her column, “Feeding My Mother,” ran for a year. A finalist for the Frank McCourt Memoir Prize, she has appeared live on the TEDx stage and The Public. She lives in New England. "Two Hudson writers seem to have found a new formula, turning the traditional reading into a party celebrating the best in new lit." --Jamie Larson, Rural Intelligence "Two 'dorks' pump up the Volume in Hudson, NY. Reclusive literati come out and play in a converted firehouse on the second Saturday of every month." --Benjamin Cassidy, The Berkshire Eagle www.facebook.com/volumehudson

The Spotty Dog is an avid fan of many art forms, not the least of which is cinema. We occasionally host an open Short Film Festival, the singular aim of which is to showcase the work of local artists. Our approach has always been inclusive since revelations abound in the very act of creation. This year's program reflects the awesome diversity of our creative community. We are truly grateful to the filmmakers and artists for giving us an opportunity to present their work. Join us!

Howardian is an American pop collective fronted by Ian Vanek (x-Japanther.) The group uses loose poly rhythms, sticky synth melodies and dynamic vocal hooks to make strange songs for weird people. The resulting infectious art-rock is authentic and catchy. Howardian’s tracks feature fuzzy, distorted walls of sound and plenty of samples, all with a scuzzy garage-rock vibe. Jen Kutler is a multidisciplinary artist and performer. She modifies found objects that are cultural signifiers of power, gender, queerness and intimacy to create atypical instruments and sculptures. Her performances feature many of her instruments incorporated with immersive field recordings to explore common and discrepant experiences of familiar social tones in immersive sound and media environments.

The Writers Studio Reading Series is a quarterly event at The Spotty Dog, where its instructors and students read from their work. The Writers Studio Hudson Valley welcomes students at all stages, from those who have only dreamed of writing fiction or poetry to those with MFAs hungry for additional serious, ongoing instruction. October's event includes: Doris Cheng and Lydia Slaby, with Gene Aronowitz, Daisy Freund, Shaina Loew, and Kate Staples. Doris Cheng's fiction has appeared in The Normal School, The Cincinnati Review, The Pinch, New Delta Review, The Southampton Review, CALYX Journal, and other literary publications. She is a 2017 Sustainable Arts Foundation Award Finalist. Doris teaches for The Writers Studio in its online program. Lydia Slaby is the author of the debut memoir Wait, It Gets Worse, which chronicles her own survival and transition from control freak to human being. She is an advocate and storyteller focused on empowering people, communities, and organizations faced with upheaval.

Join us Wednesday October 23rd at 7pm, at The Spotty Dog Books and Ale in Hudson, for a book release party celebrating Geneva Zane’s debut novela, Stringbean and the Grace of Dog. Little Stringbean is coming of age in a strange yet strangely familiar small town. Grown from a seed and raised as a miracle by a religious cult leader and his reclusive companion, Stringbean struggles with the challenges created by her outsider upbringing. In a series of compelling vignettes Stringbean and the Grace of Dog brings into focus the heartbreaking vulnerability of a childhood played out on the dusty stage of a ruptured world. Geneva Zane received her BA in creative writing from Bard College in 2018, where she was awarded the Lockwood Prize in Creative Writing. Her novel, Stringbean and the Grace of Dog, was a finalist in the 2018 Fence Modern Prize in Prose: Literature Appropriate for Children. She has been published in PCC Inscape, Cathexis Northwest, The Mighty Line, The Bangalore Review, The Perch, and Hanging Loose magazine. She lives in the Hudson Valley, by the river.