Chances are, every one of us has seen Victorine Meurent. Her delicate, red-headed form appears in at least thirty paintings by the famous Parisian masters of La Belle Époque. It was long assumed that Victorine was a prostitute, who died young in some tragically romantic way. But when our guest Drēma Drudge saw Victorine staring out from Manet’s famous painting Olympia, she felt called to uncover the woman’s story. And now we know that none of the assumptions were true — her life was far more marvelous!

Guest Drēma Drudge suffers from Stendhal’s Syndrome, the condition in which one becomes overwhelmed in the presence of great art. She attended Spalding University’s MFA in Creative Writing Program where she learned to transform that intensity into fiction. Her first novel, Victorine, was written in six countries while she and her husband wandered the globe. Drēma’s always happy to connect with readers in her Facebook group, The Painted Word Salon, or on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Music for this episode by Dana Boulé, Brent Hugh, and much of the music featured in this episode is from the album The Many Faces of Victorine, which was written and performed by Barry Drudge to accompany Drema Drudge’s novel, Victorine.

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