Lena Rizkallah has carved out a niche giving financial advice to women in their 40s and 50s, often helping them navigate transitional moments in their lives. For these clients — who may be going through a divorce, starting a businesses or taking on a new creative project — Lena helps frame out a financial plan that can enable the vision. “Money equals freedom,” she says. 

Born to Palestinian parents who immigrated to the US and raised in a suburb of Washington D.C., Lena followed a winding path to Beacon. 

In this interview, we talk about:  

• The Gaza catastrophe through the eyes of a second-generation Palestinian immigrant

• Lena’s decision to give up a career as an Immigration lawyer to work in finance

• Her “moving to Beacon” story as a single woman, and why she kept her NYC apartment

• Her panels and speakeasies focused on women and female business owners

• What Gen X women have in common; common money mistakes; "Think big" 

• The current investment climate; why economic doomerism is wrong

Lena's website: https://www.lenarizkallah.com/

Photo by Michael Isabell: https://www.michaelisabell.com/ Beaconites is recorded at Beacon AV Lab: https://www.beaconavlab.com/

Our interview with Sergei Krasikov is a must-listen if you’re into trails, open spaces, water sheds and being outside in any weather.  

Originally from Belarus, Sergei has made Beacon his home in every sense. He is a community builder and civic volunteer with a special focus on land conservation. As the chair of the Conservation Advisory Committee and founder of the Fishkill Creek Watershed Alliance, he has advanced a city-wide composting program, trail clearing, a water testing program and more. Right now he’s focused on an inventory of open spaces that could eventually be adopted into the city’s comprehensive plan.   

On top of all that, Sergei is running for City Council for the consequential 2026-2028 term.

City business aside, it’ll come as no surprise that Sergei is an active outdoorsman – a trail runner, swimmer and cross-country skier. We spent a chunk of this interview talking about things listeners can do outside in Beacon and surrounding areas. 

Links and further reading: 

Earth Day cleanup. The CAC is organizing its annual Sat April 26 Earth Day clean up, trail clearing & riparian buffer planting followed by a Green Fair at Hudson Valley Brewery. More info at: https://www.greenbeaconcoalition.org

Water testing. The Fishkill Creek Watershed Alliance, in partnership with Bard College Community Science Lab, Riverkeeper and Beacon Institute, is starting a community water quality testing program throughout the watershed this May. They're currently seeking volunteers to help collect samples that will be tested for metals, chemicals, biological markers and more. More info at https://www.fishkillwatershed.org 

Photo by Michael Isabell: https://www.michaelisabell.com/ Beaconites is recorded at Beacon AV Lab: https://www.beaconavlab.com/

Paulette Myers-Rich has partnered with dozens of artists and writers during an accomplished career in fine art printing. In this interview we talk about many of those collaborations - including a series of books featuring Irish poets produced jointly with the Center for Irish Studies at the University of St. Thomas. 

Paulette moved to Beacon in her fifties, choosing it in part because it visually echoed her industrial river city home of St. Paul, Minnesota. Once here, she continued to produce letterpress printed works under her imprint, Traffic Street Press, and opened the No. 3 Reading Room exhibition space. In our interview, Paulette talks about her creative partnerships with artists and writers, the setbacks of Covid, and the importance of fine art books today.

Kim Pennock is an educator and the poultry lead at the Stony Kill educational farm and 4H club. Stony Kill has chickens, cows, sheep, rabbits and bees, with a focus on heritage breeds. Each August, its 4H youth are represented at the Dutchess County Fair, and some go on to participate in the youth livestock sale. They come away with useful skills, friendships and a commitment to raising animals ethically and humanely. 

In this interview, Kim discusses how 4H teaches young people about agriculture, animal husbandry, gardening, art and more. And she provides an overview of her work at Stony Kill, what children and adults experience through the educational programs there and more. 

Pat Halvey is well acquainted with death and grieving. He was 13 years old when his father first initiated him into the family funeral business, and he’s worked with the deceased and the bereft ever since. That business, Riverview Funeral Services, recently merged with Beacon’s other multi-generational death and funeral services provider, Libby. 

In our interview, Pat talks about many facets of death, grieving and funeral rites. He gamely answers dozens of literally morbid questions on cremation, green burials, Irish wakes, Covid, the falloff in religious services, the disturbing uptick in people not holding any death ritual at all, weird funeral requests and more.  

Pat grew up in Beacon and he also shares memories of Beacon in his heyday (the '90s). 

Photo credit: Michael Isabell 

While living in Brooklyn in the early 1990s, Neil Caplan saw a drawing of Bannerman’s Castle on Pollepel Island - situated between Beacon and Cold Spring. Inspired, he set out to gain stewardship of it, shore up its historical features, create a system for public access and ultimately stage theater there. The result is the Bannerman Castle Trust: one part historic preservation, one part public park and one part arts organization. This spring Neil will be honored by the Howland Cultural Center at its annual gala. Current gallery exhibitions at the Howland and Bannerman’s Island Gallery feature art and artifacts from the island. Learn more at Bannermancastletrust.org. 

Photo credit: Michael Isabell 

Curtis Harvey’s creative work has played out on two parallel tracks. As a musician, he helped define a certain 1990s post-rock sound as guitarist and singer for Rex, and he has gone on to play with many other bands in Beacon and beyond. As director of exhibitions at Dia:Beacon, where he has worked in various roles for 22 years, Curtis installs the work of Fred Sandback, Meg Webster and other major artists. Most recently he supported the installation of Steve McQueen’s massive and immersive  “Bass” installation on the basement level, and this interview has an extended discussion of this work. On Saturday January 25, Dia will host a symposium on this immersive sound and light experience, which will remain installed until May 26. 

Related: Bass, Steve McQueen, Dia:Beacon

Early childhood learning is pretty fraught at the moment. The lingering effects of Covid-era learning challenges, an epidemic of teacher burnout, and a rise in autism spectrum diagnoses have all contributed to a simmering crisis in education that we're probably not talking about enough. But there are bright spots. One is the Tioronda Learning Center, a longstanding pre-K program serving Beacon, led by executive director Meredith Hairston. Meredith talks about her journey from Vermont to New York City to the Hudson Valley, TLC's place in the community over many decades, and how to help kids thrive creatively, emotionally and cognitively. 

Kristen Holt-Browning is a poet, editor and (now) novelist. Her debut work of fiction, Ordinary Devotion, juxtaposes the lives of two women separated by 700 years. Kristen grew up nearby in the hamlet of Stone Ridge, spent some years in New York City (Manhattan, then Brooklyn) before moving back to Beacon 15 years ago. 

In this interview, she talks about her experience growing up in the Hudson Valley, raising kids in Beacon, the literary scene here and the pile-up of thoughts and memories in middle age. And she reads two poems and a passage from her novel.

This interview is the latest in a series with Beacon and Hudson Valley-based writers. See also: Ruth Danon, Lucy Sante, Sam Anderson and Danny Goodman.

Sam Anderson is a master of the essay form whose work spans a huge range of human experience and culture. 

As a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, Sam has interviewed and written about Weird Al Yankovic, writer John McPhee, NBA point guard Russell Westbrook, travel guru Rick Steves, Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami and the people trying to rescue Michaelangelo’s David from ruin. He has spent time with the last two white rhinos on Earth and visited the bat volcano in Calakmul, Mexico. And he wrote a book, Boom Town, about Oklahoma City which is both a profile of one Midwestern municipality and a meditation on the dueling forces of rapacious development and “place making” that are at war in every American city, including Beacon. 

In each of his projects, Sam brings a trademark personal touch, situating himself in relation to his subjects with a disarming vulnerability. He weaves in his anxiety, depression, body image, feelings of loss and fear of death through introspective asides that illuminate rather than upstage his subjects. That all sounds serious and not very funny, but Sam is a hilarious person so this episode has a good number of laughs in it. 

In our interview, Sam talks about his early ambition to be a writer, his creative process, animals, aging, drawing and much more.