#HudsonValley: “Death at Olana” by Glenda Ruby Imagines a Murder at the Landscape Painting Site

The century-and-a-half home of a Hudson Valley painter is the setting for a contemporary mystery novel.

by Rich Watson 

In the mid-nineteenth century, a group of landscape artists based in the Hudson Valley formed a movement that brought the region, and other parts of America, to life in a variety of paintings. 

One of them, Frederick Edwin Church, designed and lived in a mansion, Olana, that grew to personify the Hudson River School. Today it’s a museum that draws visitors from around the region and beyond.

In 2013, it was the subject of a mystery novel that drew upon the place’s history, called Death at Olana.

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BRW: Behind the Blind 2

So I joined Substack in June. 

The platform offers writers the opportunity to create newsletters featuring their work. Newsletters have become more of a thing lately. I send out my BRW posts this way. I hope to expand my audience with it.

Substack writers offer paid subscriptions as well as free ones. The paid ones often provide exclusive extras. The whole thing is still very new to me, not unlike the first time I created a blog. 

Will I get anywhere with this? We’ll see.

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#HudsonValley: Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Years At Vassar College

The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet graduated from this former women’s college in Poughkeepsie.

by Rich Watson 

Edna St. Vincent Millay was a poet from the early twentieth century. Her poem “Ballad of the Harp-Weaver” won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923, the first time the award went to a woman poet.

She achieved notoriety early in life, which led to an education at a distinguished school: Vassar College.

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