What Lives Here

The work so far, and what’s coming next.

Dear Reader,

Before I get into it, I want to mark a threshold with you.

This week, All My Dead & Living Things became a Substack “bestseller,” briefly landing at #50 on the New Bestsellers list. That happened because enough of you decided this work was worth supporting, sharing, and sticking with. I feel deeply grateful — and, if I’m honest, a little stunned.

So today, in light of there being more eyes on this now, I want to take a beat to welcome the new folks, and to re-orient all of us to this work: what’s behind us, and what’s to come.

First: there’s a deep archive of past pieces – 42 of them, to be exact – that you can wander through at your own pace. These essays are the backbone of this project: reported, personal, and rooted in place. If you want a way in, here are a few of my own favorites:

• Hudson Old and New: If It Works for Kids It Works for Everyone — a piece about the city’s past, present, and the future we’re building. I love this one because I’m raising my kids here, and I’m continually surprised by how far a child-centered lens can take us.

• Galvan in Hudson: Power, Preservation, and Legacy — a deep dive into philanthropy, development, and moral complexity in a small city. This was my most-read post by far, and also the one that took the most research, interviews, and sitting with discomfort to write.

• Why I Clean Gravestones — a more personal piece about grief, memory, and tending what’s been left behind. I cried while writing it, shared it anyway, and was overjoyed by how it landed with people.

• Moving to Hudson: How to Show Up with Care — especially for folks new to town who want to enter responsibly. I wrote this about my neighbor Frannie, a beloved special education teacher and Golden Retriever enthusiast who was displaced last year. It’s about love, loss, and what “welcome” actually requires.

• Raised by Hudson: A Story of Grief, Understanding, and a New Kind of Police Chief — an interview with Chief Mishanda Franklin about public safety shaped by grief, memory, and deep roots. I’ve looked up to her since I was a kid, and this conversation felt like a gift.

• No Drowning: Parenting Where I Was Parented at Oakdale Lake — on parenting, collective care, and growing up in the same public places I’m now sharing with my children. Oakdale is my favorite place in Hudson; it’s become theirs, too.

• Leaving The Spark — about letting go of a role I helped build and stepping into something new. This piece marks an ending I’m proud of—and the beginning of a life that feels increasingly like my own: writing, listening, staying.

As for what’s coming next: I’m currently finishing a piece on Bliss Towers, Hudson’s high-rise: its history, its present condition, and what it reveals about housing, neglect, and dignity. It includes an interview with one of the building’s very first residents, and it’s been really sitting with me.

I’m also working toward a civic series: pieces that track how decisions actually get made in Hudson, and how power moves (or stalls) through meetings, boards, budgets, and private conversations. This series will braid together reporting, lived experience, and local history. My goal with this series is not to tell people what to think, but to make our shared reality more coherent. My hope is that it becomes a kind of civic memory: something you can point to, argue with, return to.

All of this – every interview, archive dive, cemetery visit, meeting attended, draft rewritten – is made possible by subscribers. Your support doesn’t just keep the lights on; it gives me the time and steadiness to do this work with care, rigor, and a whole lot of Hudson heart.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for trusting me with this place we’re all trying to stay in relationship with! I’m really glad you’re here.

Honoring an ancestor, Leona Fridkin, in Cedar Park Cemetery in Hudson.

With care,
Caitie

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