Born and raised in Columbia County, author Chloe Caldwell has returned to her old stomping grounds of Hudson, NY after sojourns in Europe, Portland, Seattle and Brooklyn. The 29-year-old, who already has penned an acclaimed book of essays and been featured in numerous anthologies, will read from her recently published novella, Women, at 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 12 at the Third Floor Gallery along with writer Abigail Thomas. I was raised in Spencertown, New York. Instead of going to college after high school, I went to Europe, then briefly attended Hudson Valley Community College. When I was 20, I visited my brother in Brooklyn and fell in love with Williamsburg, so I stopped going to school and moved in with him. Although I’ve loved writing my entire life, it was after I moved and began attending classes at the Gotham Writers Workshop that I really got the writing bug. I lived in the city for three years, took a lot of memoir writing classes and worked for a jewelry designer in the West Village. But after a while, I started to feel like I would die if I didn’t leave the city because I was working full time and going to bars and I just wasn’t able to focus on writing. I wanted a healthier lifestyle — I was ambitious, but I wasn’t making good choices. I moved to Seattle for a year, where I was a nanny by day and wrote all night. It’s where I wrote most of my first book, Legs Get Led Astray. I also lived in Portland, Oregon for a year. Legs Get Led Astray was being published by a small press located there, so I started visiting the area and loved the great community of young writers I found there. I got a job at Powell's and began writing what became my next book, Women.
In February of this year I signed a publishing contract for Women. I’d never made any money from writing before, so this was my first book advance. I was able to find a nice apartment in Hudson and actually afford it. I feel like there was always something calling me back to Hudson. My dad owns Musica on N. 4th Street, and I’ve lived here on and off for the past eight years. Hudson is perfect, because I have the solitude I need to write, but I can easily take the train into the city to do readings and see friends. I like that it’s somewhat of a transient town, a place where a lot of interesting bands and writers pass through. I’ve heard people say, “If you don’t like Hudson, wait a day." I like that Hudson is walkable. It saves a lot of time when you don’t have to commute or spend time waiting for a bus. I haven’t had a car in years and I don’t need one here – I can walk to the bank, post office, coffee shops, yoga studios and to TSL to see movies. I work right downtown, too, at Hudson Clothier. It leaves me with a lot of down time, so I can write for six hours at a time. I recently submitted a new essay collection, I’ll Tell You In Person, to my agent, and I’m hoping it will get published soon.
