Chelsea Hodson earned her MFA at Bennington College and was a PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellow. Her work has been published in The New York Times Magazine, Frieze Magazine, Black Warrior Review, The Lifted Brow, and more. She teaches at the Mors Tua Vita Mea workshop in Sezze Romano, Italy, and lives in Brooklyn, New York
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History Lessons "Most likely to become a new classic." --The Wing
"It's not hard to understand why Miranda July--a surreal writer
herself--is a fan...lucid insights, and Hodson's transfixing style,
mark a memorable first collection."--The Washington Post "Reading
Hodson's work feels risky; it's breathtaking, both in its inherent
exhilaration and also, often, because it's funny. . .But it also
makes you feel connected to things, as if you are forging new
relationships to the things and people in the world around you,
uncovering new understandings about permanence, about intuition,
about love and sex and lies and secrets and truth, about life."
--NYLON "[Tonight I'm Someone Else is] precise about the most
mysterious things, cool, and thoughtfully exploratory. From the
title on, [this book] draws upon a concentrated attention to self
that leads continually toward something new." --The Believer
"Chelsea Hodson catalogs and explores all the weird kinks you
develop while looking for love in your 20s: excessive longing,
self-sabotage, self-delusion, self-obsession, self-deletion, and
lying all the time. . . .Hodson digs deep beneath the surface of
her loves to draw out life-sustaining truths trapped as stray
thoughts, poignant details, and well-wrought memories." --The
Stranger "I'm so blown away by Chelsea Hodson that I almost don't
know what to say. TONIGHT I'M SOMEONE ELSE is thoughtful,
insightful, and so affecting that it's painful. Every sentence will
stay with you for a long, long time. Read this book. "
--HelloGiggles "Many book lovers would jump on board any train
Miranda July and Maggie Nelson are on; this essay collection, which
explores the body, desire, and Grand Theft Auto, is their latest
recommendation." --Elle.com "[Tonight I'm Someone Else is] precise
about the most mysterious things, cool, and thoughtfully
exploratory. From the title on, [this book] draws upon a
concentrated attention to self that leads continually toward
something new." --The Believer "Read this startlingly honest essay
collection and beware: You will emerge utterly changed."
--Refinery29
"[Chelsea Hodson] has a particular ability to blend immediacy with
a sharply rendered sense of distance; the combination makes for a
memorable experience." --Vol. 1 Brooklyn
"This essay collection is shape-shifting, and Hodson's voice has
got me under a spell of sorts. I am making my way through it and
going from awe to exhilaration to discomfort, and back to awe."
--Literary Hub "These essays are sexy but they have stars in their
eyes. They're reckless and dramatic, but somehow concurrently
tender and clean... Tonight I'm Someone Else is a debut unlike any
other I've read in a long time." --The Public "This sad, smart
essay collection... feels much like staring at your own face in a
shattered mirror." -- Philadelphia Weekly
"On a line level, Tonight I'm Someone Else might be the book of the
year. These essays are lyrically precise and impeccably formed."
--Largehearted Boy "Desire, admiration, aspiration, envy: the
essays in Chelsea Hodson's collection know this surge, they ride it
effortlessly." --The Lifted Brow "Beautiful and poetic at moments,
jarring and like an out-of-body experience at others, this
collection is a must-have." --Book Trib "Hodson's writing
style...offers a clear and strong point of view...This is overall a
unique collection about being an artist and a woman in a world that
doesn't always value either." --Booklist "The author's word choices
capture entire worlds and emotional landscapes... Hodson's language
magnetizes and begs for attention...keeping the pages turning. A
simultaneously bewildering and compelling body of work." --Kirkus
Reviews "Hodson's essays have such a sexy drama to them--and
ultimately it's the romance of just getting through life; the
passion that comes from being a wholly alert woman and living to
tell about it. I had a real romance with this book." --Miranda
July
"Chelsea Hodson tests herself against her desires, grapples with
their consequences, and presents a surgically precise account of
what they were to her. These essays are bewitching--despite their
discipline and rigor, you can smell the blood." --Sarah Manguso,
author of 300 Arguments and The Two Kinds of Decay "Chelsea Hodson
is my favorite essayist. Her work is like the desert: clean and
mysterious and full of skeletons. I'll make a prediction: TONIGHT
I'M SOMEONE ELSE will go down as a classic." --Scott McClanahan,
author of The Sarah Book "Her essays are a specialized artform
where poetry meets philosophy. They reflect on the gruesome side of
being a woman in the excellent tradition of Joan Didion and Sylvia
Plath. I highly recommend Chelsea Hodson's book to all readers."
--Atticus Lish, author of Preparation for the Next Life "This book
has dark humor, recklessness, exhilaration. . . .I felt I was
reading a writer who would tell harder truths than many other
writers, and she turns this nerve against herself to good effect."
--Amy Hempel Praise for Pity the Animal (a chapbook):
"Wild and chiseled, both. . . .Pity The Animal has its own
youthful, American verve, as well as its own dedication to
parataxis and precision." --Maggie Nelson "Wonderful--small and
sharp as a dagger." --Molly Crabapple
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