Norman Douglas's Book Release Reading with Karen Schoemer and Andrew Amelinckx.
Celebrate the release of Norman's debut literary collection, Love and the Fear of Love. Free.
Love and the Fear of Love is made of fables, stories, and tales based on specific words and phrases. Dig in to court procedurals on the meaning of love, the true meaning of trouserdom, and original fables such as The Man, the King, the Girl and the Spider.
NORMAN DOUGLAS
norman douglas does way too much, even tho he says he does as little as possible.
he lives alone to sleep in the very large apartment he calls home while advocating communal lifestyles.
he writes poems on the street and says he’s not a poet.
he uses human languages to say that language fails to create the true realm of the unspeakable.
he knows we’re not even people and says the planet would still be perfectly invaluable without nominally sentient animals who are so scared of love that they don’t even need to validate while they value everything else they ain’t got.
mostly he treks lots of stories just like folks you know. plus, he wants to not want.
also, he pays rent in hudson, new york, usa, earth, outer space.
KAREN SCHOEMER
Poet Karen Schoemer contributes words and vocals to a number of bands, including Sky Furrows, Jaded Azurites, Ivan the Tolerable and Karen & Peter. A former music critic for the New York Times and Newsweek, she is the author of Great Pretenders: My Strange Love Affair with 50s Pop Music and the poetry chapbook Sparrowbush Bread.
ANDREW AMELINCKX
Andrew Amelinckx is a freelance journalist who has previously written three historical true-crime books. He held down a variety of jobs, from bartending in New Orleans to burlesque dancing in New York City, before spending a decade as an award-winning investigative crime reporter for several news organizations, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Berkshire Eagle. His work has appeared in Insider, Smithsonian.com, Men’s Journal, Modern Farmer, and elsewhere. He has an MFA with distinction in painting from Pratt Institute. Andrew lives with his wife, Kara, and dog, Dashiell, in New York’s Hudson Valley.
Reading with Alex Dyck, Nora Treatbaby, and Music by Cal Fish, Misty 222 and RRB (Rager)
And Potions by NYMPH! $5-$15 donation for the artists.
Time creates a space for us to be together.
Doors will be open to let the air and light in.
Show will be accessible from the inside + from the street.
Book Club!
Meets at 6pm Every Second Tuesday. Free!
Book Club Description
A group of up to twenty diverse individuals who share a love of reading, conversation, discussion, meeting new people and who are open to diverse life views. Each meeting, a different club member will be designated to host the next gathering. Drinks and snacks are available. We’ll see what happens and build from there!
Book Club Details:
– A new host at every club meeting!
– The Book Club books are available from The Spotty Dog at a 15% book club discount.
– the second Tuesday of every month
– 20 people maximum
– 6pm-8pm or so
About The House in the Cerulean Sea
A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret.
Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.
When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he’s given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.
But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.
An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.
Author Event, Discussion & Book Signing
With Alissa Quart and Kimberly Cutter. Free.
Alissa and Kimberly will be discussing Alissa’s new book, Bootstrapped Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream.
Bootstrapped is an unsparing, incisive, yet ultimately hopeful look at how we can shed the American obsession with self-reliance that has made us less healthy, less secure, and less fulfilled
The promise that you can “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” is central to the story of the American Dream. It’s the belief that if you work hard and rely on your own resources, you will eventually succeed. However, time and again we have seen how this foundational myth, with its emphasis on individual determination, brittle self-sufficiency, and personal accomplishment, does not help us. Instead, as income inequality rises around us, we are left with shame and self-blame for our condition.
Acclaimed journalist Alissa Quart argues that at the heart of our suffering is a do-it-yourself ethos, the misplaced belief in our own independence and the conviction that we must rely on ourselves alone. Looking at a range of delusions and half solutions—from “grit” to the false Horatio Alger story to the rise of GoFundMe—Quart reveals how we have been steered away from robust social programs that would address the root causes of our problems. Meanwhile, the responsibility for survival has been shifted onto the backs of ordinary people, burdening generations with debt instead of providing the social safety net we so desperately need.
Insightful, sharply argued, and characterized by Quart’s lively writing and deep reporting, and for fans of Evicted and Nickel and Dimed, Bootstrapped is a powerful examination of what ails us at a societal level and a plan for how we can free ourselves from these self-defeating narratives.
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ALISSA QUART
is the author of five acclaimed books of nonfiction, Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2023), Squeezed, Republic of Outsiders, Hothouse Kids, and Branded. She is the Executive Director of the non-profit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. She is also the author of two books of poetry Thoughts and Prayers and Monetized. She has written for many publications including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and TIME. Her honors include an Emmy, an SPJ award and a Nieman fellowship. She lives with her family in Brooklyn.
KIMBERLY CUTTER
is a journalist, novelist, and creator and host of The Control Variable: American Propaganda, an investigative podcast series that takes an unprecedented look into the history and science of propaganda to better understand the events of January 6, 2021. She is the former Executive Editor for Harper’s Bazaar and the former West Coast Editor for W Magazine. Cutter has written for many publications including The Wall Street Journal, Elle, Vanity Fair, New York, AD, Marie Claire and Vogue.com. She lives in the Hudson Valley.MORE
Alison Riley with Becca Blackwell & Meshell Ndegeocello
Discussing Alison's new book Recipe for Disaster. Free.
Book Club!
Meets at 6pm Every Second Tuesday.
This Month’s book:
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Book Club Description
A group of up to twenty diverse individuals who share a love of reading, conversation, discussion, meeting new people and who are open to diverse life views. Each meeting, a different club member will be designated to host the next gathering. Drinks and snacks are available. We’ll see what happens and build from there!
Book Club Details:
– A new host at every club meeting!
– The Book Club books are available from The Spotty Dog at a 15% book club discount.
– the second Tuesday of every month
– 20 people maximum
– 6pm-8pm or so
About Klara and the Sun
From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans.
In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?
Author Event with Kat Georges, Bibbe Hansen, and Puma Perl
Three writers reading from the new anthology: Arriving at a Shoreline. Free.
Kat Georges is a New York City-based author, poet, playwright, and graphic designer. She is the author of Our Lady of the Hunger: Poems and Three Somebodies: Plays about Notorious Dissidents, and is co-editor of the annual contemporary dada journal, Maintenant. Her poems have recently appeared in NYC from the Inside and Mas Tequila. Kat is co-director, editor, and creative director of Three Rooms Press.
Bibbe Hansenis a veteran of Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory and the 1960’s New York experimental theater and film underground. She is the daughter of Fluxus and Happenings artist Al Hansen, and the mother of visual artist Channing Hansen and the pop musician Beck. A multiverse performer, musician, and visual artist, Bibbe lives in Hudson, New York and lectures, performs, and exhibits internationally.
Puma Perl is a poet, writer, journalist, and performer and is the author of two chapbooks and three full-length poetry collections, including Retrograde (great weather for MEDIA). Her band, Puma Perl and Friends, brings spoken word together with rock and roll and has performed together since 2012. She’s received three awards from the New York Press Association in recognition of her journalism and was the recipient of the 2016 Acker Award in the category of writing. In 2022 she was honored to read at the Whitney Biennial, New York City.
Book Club!
Meets at 6pm Every Second Tuesday.
This Month’s book:
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, by V. E. Schwab.
Book Club Description
A group of up to twenty diverse individuals who share a love of reading, conversation, discussion, meeting new people and who are open to diverse life views. Each meeting, a different club member will be designated to host the next gathering. Drinks and snacks are available. We’ll see what happens and build from there!
Book Club Details:
– A new host at every club meeting!
– The Book Club books are available from The Spotty Dog at a 15% book club discount.
– the second Tuesday of every month
– 20 people maximum
– 6pm-8pm or so
About The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.
But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.MORE
Author Reading and Book Signing with Jen Beagin
Discussing her new book, Big Swiss, which is set in Hudson!
It’s going to get crowded! Join us for an event with acclaimed local author Jen Beagin, reading from her new novel Big Swiss, which is set in Hudson.
“A fantastic, weird-as-hell, super funny novel.”
—Melissa Broder, author of Milk FedJEN BEAGIN
holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine, and is a recipient of a Whiting Award in fiction. Her first novel Pretend I’m Dead was shortlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and Vacuum in the Dark was shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction. She is also the author of Big Swiss. She lives in Hudson, New York.ABOUT THE BOOK
Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house, built in 1737, is unrenovated, uninsulated, and full of bees. Greta spends her days transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach who calls himself Om. She becomes infatuated with his newest client, a repressed married woman she affectionately refers to as Big Swiss, since she’s tall, stoic, and originally from Switzerland. Greta is fascinated by Big Swiss’s refreshing attitude toward trauma. They both have dark histories, but Big Swiss chooses to remain unattached to her suffering while Greta continues to be tortured by her past.One day, Greta recognizes Big Swiss’s voice at the dog park. In a panic, she introduces herself with a fake name and they quickly become enmeshed. Although Big Swiss is unaware of Greta’s true identity, Greta has never been more herself with anyone. Her attraction to Big Swiss overrides her guilt, and she’ll do anything to sustain the relationship…Bold, outlandish, and filled with irresistible characters, Big Swiss is both a love story and also a deft examination of infidelity, mental health, sexual stereotypes, and more—from an amazingly talented, one-of-a-kind voice in contemporary fiction.