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Crescent Dragonwagon

“My late father, Maurice Zolotow, was a Hollywood biographer, a professional freelance writer and passionate reader. Whenever I went through hard times, personally or professionally, Maurice could be counted on to tell me two things. The first was advice:  ‘Write your way out of it!’ he’d bark, directively.  But then, more thoughtfully, he’d say, ‘It’s all material, Cres. Nothing is wasted on the writer.’

“These are words I’ve lived and written by; they have allowed me to find meaning and purpose in every age, stage, experience adventure and misadventure in life. Here, I do it again, focusing on our lives, mine and yours, as writers. I give some advice; I tell some stories.

"Thanks for the title, Maurice.”

Baking Poundcake for Maurice Sendak

Baking Poundcake for Maurice Sendak

By Crescent Dragonwagon 4 Comments

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This is one of four posts on poundcakes; which is to say, on life. And death. And stories. In June 2012, I went to a memorial for Maurice Sendak, the legendary children’s book writer-illustrator. He’d died the month before, at 84. Among his countless accomplishments, Maurice  illustrated one of the  books my mother, Charlotte Zolotow, wrote. His pictures for her Mr. Rabbit and the… Read More

Filed Under: Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer, Uncategorized

Walking in Eureka Springs, Where I was Young

Walking in Eureka Springs, Where I was Young

By Crescent Dragonwagon 3 Comments

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Small Satisfactions, Relentless Incrementalism: night-time walk in a town where I was young Last Saturday, for the first time in five days (I’d had company), I reached my daily goal of 10,000 steps, counted on my Fitbit. I reached it with a cool 10 minutes to spare before midnight. This happened because, as I was working away that evening, I… Read More

Filed Under: Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer

getting good: the three secrets of writing (and everything else)

getting good: the three secrets of writing (and everything else)

By Crescent Dragonwagon 3 Comments

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Quick, think of your favorite musician. Bonnie Raitt? Yo-Yo Ma? Doesn’t matter. John Coltrane? Lady Gaga? Eric Clapton? Youssou N’Dour? Doesn’t matter. Dolly Parton, Mirian McPartland, Howlin’ Wolf, Luciano Pavarotti? Still doesn’t matter. Because whoever he or she is, he or she did (and, if alive, still does) three things that anyone, who is good at anything, does. Those three things:… Read More

Filed Under: Books, Charlotte Zolotow, Crescent Dragonwagon, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer, self-understanding, personal growth, Writing Courses Tagged With: practice makes practice, writers, writing

Department of Daily Life: Mixed Media

Department of Daily Life: Mixed Media

By Crescent Dragonwagon Leave a Comment

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So I’m driving home last night from yoga, in a dreamy state, and I pass the farm stand at high Meadows and can see from the road that it looks like they still have two boxes of what are doubtlessly the very very very last of the season fresh raspberries. I go past, really not inclined to stop, but those… Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer Tagged With: department of daily life, mixed berries and living

Oh oh…

Oh oh…

By Sweetie ~ Team Dragon Leave a Comment

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Oh oh… Surpassingly strange, strong, moving, out-of-the-blue moment tonight. The words I will try to find for it can only inadequately express the experience. I was at a yoga class which I take once a week, on Tuesday night, called restorative yoga. This is the one fitness class of any kind, anywhere, that I’ve ever taken, where at some level… Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer Tagged With: Charlotte Zolotow, ebb and flow of life, memories of Charlotte

before you push the envelope, you have to be willing to open it

before you push the envelope, you have to be willing to open it

By Crescent Dragonwagon Leave a Comment

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I was innocently standing at the foot of my hill by the mailbox, flipping through the envelopes, about eight years ago. And there, smack in the middle of the mail, was one from Bank of America, with the word ‘statement.’ I glared at it. And heard myself say aloud, snarlingly, “Goddammit! I thought I was done with you!” I took… Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer, Uncategorized

Motherless Mother’s Days

By Crescent Dragonwagon 2 Comments

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At the memorial service for the poet Miller Williams, a service held a month ago at the Fayetteville, Arkansas public library, I met his daughter, singer/songwriter/musician Lucinda Williams. It turned out she knew of one of my more obscure and long ago cookbooks, and she began telling me the dishes she made from it… “And those vegetable fritters? I must’ve… Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer, Uncategorized

This is the way it works: reminder from a turkey buzzard

By Crescent Dragonwagon Leave a Comment

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This is the way it works. You return to a town where you used to live. You go on a short walk, on a street you have walked many times. You are only stretching your back and legs and getting a few more steps in so your Fitbit will be happy at the end of the day. You are only… Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer, Writing Courses Tagged With: appreciation, Arkansas, David Koff, Eureka Springs, fitness, gradual transformation, grief & grieving, home, hope, love, Ned Shank, poetry, resilience, Wislawa Syzmborska, writer's memory

My father, the stripper’s press agent

By Crescent Dragonwagon 1 Comment

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After the Los Angeles funeral of my late father, Maurice Zolotow, a well-dressed, chic, trim woman came up to me and extended her hand. She had excellent posture, and her hair — a jet-black that looked neither harsh nor unnatural — was well-styled in a short, flattering, expensive cut. Her age was hard to guess (I figured out later that… Read More

Filed Under: Books, Charlotte Zolotow, Crescent Dragonwagon, Maurice Zolotow, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer, self-understanding, personal growth Tagged With: aging, aging parents, celebrity biography, change, fame, grief & grieving, mothers, narrative, sexuality, writer's memory, writers, writing

Charlotte Zolotow’s Fierce Truthtelling: ‘always’ is continguous to ‘never’

By Crescent Dragonwagon 4 Comments

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It's been snowing all day. The house at 29 Elm Place, where I grew up, will be sold in a month or two. It's the house in which my mother, the writer Charlotte Zolotow, quietly died 24 days ago. I am here going through her papers. This is a job which could, and in some ways will, take me the… Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer, Uncategorized

Keeping the “dead” in “deadline”

By Crescent Dragonwagon 2 Comments

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“He cannot be dead,” said Paul, my father’s editor at Playboy. “It is Friday. I am sitting here looking at a pitch letter he sent me on Monday.” Things you don’t realize will be part of your job description: returning voicemail messages left for your father, who has suddenly died. “Well, Paul,” I said, “Maurice always said he wanted to… Read More

Filed Under: Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer, self-understanding, personal growth Tagged With: aging, aging parents, appreciation, death, grief & grieving, Ned Shank, resilience, Wislawa Syzmborska, writer's memory, writers, writing

speaking the unspeakable; accepting the unacceptable

speaking the unspeakable; accepting the unacceptable

By Crescent Dragonwagon 7 Comments

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Why are some saved and some lost? Once a month most months, I make the round-trip drive from Westminster West,Vermont to Hastings-on-Hudson, New York (where I spend a week with my 97-year-old mother, Charlotte Zolotow). Leave Vermont, cross Massachusetts, cross Connecticut, reach New York. And then reverse it. Exit after exit, I read the names of the towns and have… Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer, self-understanding, personal growth Tagged With: appreciation, change, community, compassion towards self and others, Wislawa Syzmborska, writers, writing

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Read Aloud with Crescent and Mark

NOT A LITTLE MONKEY, by Charlotte Zolotow, illustrted by Michelle Chessaree

"So, the little girl climbed into the big waste-basket and waited." ' Oh no,' said her mother, ' we don't want to throw you away.'"There are many ways to express love and the need for attention. Here, a busy mother and her just-a-bit naughty little girl tease each other affectionately — the little girl making her point without even uttering a word.That's today's story time — read aloud by the author's daughter at Crescent Dragonwagon's Writing, Cooking, & Workshops, with Mark Graff's "text support" and discussion."Just right for two-to-fours, the humor of this true-to-life story of a mischievous little girl who blocks her mother's attempts to clean house will elicit giggles from the lollipop set." Kirkus Reviews

Posted by Crescent Dragonwagon's Writing, Cooking, & Workshops on Thursday, June 4, 2020

Read Aloud with Crescent

Read Aloud with Crescent

The Washington Post on Crescent’s Lentil Soup Recipe

The Washington Post on Crescent’s Lentil Soup Recipe

Greek Lentil Soup with Spinach and Lemon, photograph by Tom McCorkle, Washington Post

March Offering

March Offering

Bean By Bean Cookbooks

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Dinner with Dragonwagon

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A NAPPA Gold Winner
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"... like a warm luminescent blanket at bedtime... softly lulling." -- New York Times


"(With) weary animals, Dragonwagon offers an “alphabet of ways to sleep,” smoothly working in some alliteration..."
- Publishers Weekly (starred review)


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read aloud with Crescent Dragonwagon

Until Just Moistened

Until Just Moistened

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