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Crescent Dragonwagon

DEAR FRIEND OF THE WIDOW:  FOOLPROOF CONSOLATION, EIGHT WAYS TO HELP THE GRIEVING

DEAR FRIEND OF THE WIDOW: FOOLPROOF CONSOLATION, EIGHT WAYS TO HELP THE GRIEVING

By Crescent Dragonwagon 4 Comments

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OUR FRIENDS WANT TO HELP US. THEY DON’T KNOW HOW. WE DON’T KNOW HOW EITHER. BECAUSE WE ARE RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF IT. DEAR WIDOW, I WROTE THIS LETTER FOR YOU TO GIVE YOUR FRIENDS. PART ONE: A LETTER TO THE WIDOW’S FRIENDS Dear Friend of the Widow, You already know this: ___________, the beloved life partner of your… Read More

Filed Under: #WidowhoodWednesday, Fearless Living, grief, self-understanding, personal growth, widowhood Tagged With: condolence, friendship, grief, how to help a widow, sympathy

PEPPERS, PUDDINGS, & FOOD FOR THE HIGH NOON OF SUMMER: A DINNER PARTY IDYLL

PEPPERS, PUDDINGS, & FOOD FOR THE HIGH NOON OF SUMMER: A DINNER PARTY IDYLL

By Crescent Dragonwagon 2 Comments

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High noon, on the year’s clock. That’s what it is right now. I know technically, literally, that summer’s high noon would be the Solstice, towards June’s end. But subjectively, I place it about a month later. That’s when the overflowing, abundant generosity of my local farm-stand makes me swoon with possibilities, and it’s hard not to overbuy. All that produce!… Read More

Filed Under: #DinnerwithDragonwagon Tagged With: cooking, Crescent dragonwagon, dinner parties, Food and Drink, friendship, Recipes, vegetarian

Are you a real writer? The sure way to find out…

By Crescent Dragonwagon 17 Comments

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It's 9:24 a.m. I have to leave at 10:00 to drive a deeply depressed friend to her therapy appointment. I am in the middle of writing one of my long, thoughtful, typical essay-type posts, which my friend Ronni Lundy calls "blongs." I left it, and began writing this instead. I have a bowl of Irish oatmeal beside me, cooked with… Read More

Filed Under: Books, Crescent Dragonwagon, Fearless Writing, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer, self-understanding, personal growth Tagged With: fame, friendship, getting things done, Ned Shank, real writer, write every day, writer, writers, writing

a sound of wings unseen, inadvertent wisdom: a fathering day post

By Crescent Dragonwagon 7 Comments

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Walking yesterday, up near Frazier's sugar shack here in Vermont, I heard an animal rustle in the underbrush edging the woods by the gravel road. Though I stood stock-still and watched, I couldn't see what it was. Too large for a chipmunk or a squirrel, smaller by far than a deer, I was left only with the sudden sound of… Read More

Filed Under: Charlotte Zolotow, Crescent Dragonwagon, Maurice Zolotow Tagged With: Aekansas, aging, aging parents, Ann-Margret, appreciation, Arkansas, Audobon Society, birds, Brigitte Bardot, celebrity biography, change, Charlotte Zolotow, Count Basie, Crescent dragonwagon, death, Duke Ellington, environmentalism, Eureka Springs, fame, Father's Day, Film, friendship, great blue heron, great blue heron, Heraclitus, Hollywood, hope, John Wayne, John Wayne, King's River, Los Angeles, love, Marilyn Monroe, Maurice Zolotow, natural world, nature, peace, spruce grouse, Tallulah Bankhead, Ursula Anndress, Vermont, walking, walking, walks, wildlife. writing, writer's memory, writers, writing

Part Two, at last! “the rare hare of hope” bounds back in: with guest appearances by Letterman, Aunt Dot, Chou-Chou, Joseph Campbell, Konrad Stanislavski & Sir Francis

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I began writing these words on Easter Sunday, as Christians celebrated the triumphant arc of their spiritual year, when Christ rises from death. But resurrection itself belongs to everyone, regardless of belief, or non-belief. Here in much of America, Easter-time coincides with the year's resurrection. The alarm clock set by the spin and wobble of this particular planet on which… Read More

Filed Under: Books, Charlotte Zolotow, self-understanding, personal growth Tagged With: aging, appreciation, Arkansas, Bounding, bunnies, Bunny, change, change, change of seasons, Charlotte Zolotow, children's book writing, children's books, compassion towards self and others, Crescent dragonwagon, David Koff, death, death, dying, e e cummings, Easter, eldercare, environmentalism, friendship, gradual transformation, grief & grieving, hope, hospice, loss, love, love, natural world, peace, Pixar, rabbit, Religion, spring, spring, Steve Zolotow, Vermont, winter, writer's memory, writers, writing

dreaming, as two decades join: “rare hare of hope,” part one

By Crescent Dragonwagon 5 Comments

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My unconscious, in the dreams it chooses to deliver to me, seems to view my conscious mind as a kindergartner. When it gives me the information that it's decided I need, it does so in very simple terms. Simple, but strange. Like the dream I had two nights ago, just before one decade ended and another began. And, though simple… Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon, self-understanding, personal growth Tagged With: 2010, appreciation, Arkansas, boundin, Bounding, bounding, change, community, compassion towards self and others, Current Affairs, David Koff, death, death, Eureka Springs, Film, films for children, friendship, future, George Bush, gradual transformation, grief, grief & grieving, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, hope, Hope, jackalope, Janus, libraries, love, love, movies, narrative, natural world, Ned Shank, new decade, partisanship, partisanship, Pixar, Pixar, positivity, resilience, Vermont, Vermont, writing

letting an invitation become personally seismic: how I began to grow up

By Crescent Dragonwagon 7 Comments

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Greetings, dear blog-readers! May 1, 2009, is the one-year anniversary of "nothing is wasted on the writer", and I thank you, thank you for your generous responses.  I'm working on an anniversary post: it also happens to be the one-year anniversary of when I stopped using credit cards, as well as the general time of year I begin getting in… Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon, self-understanding, personal growth Tagged With: appreciation, asparagus, change, compassion towards self and others, Eureka Springs, friendship, gardening, gradual transformation, grief & grieving, love, Ned Shank, spring, writing

Part 2: love/ let sleeping cats tell the truth

By Crescent Dragonwagon 14 Comments

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Here in Vermont, there is a moment of exquisiteness in the turning of each year. It only lasts for a few late summer days, days still warm and sun-filled, the outdoors still richly greened with only a few colored leaves, garden still producing. Yet in this charged moment, there's the slightest breath of fall.  These days, close to earthly perfection,… Read More

Filed Under: self-understanding, personal growth Tagged With: aging, appreciation, Arkansas, cats, change, compassion towards self and others, David Koff, death, death of a pet, e e cummings, Eureka Springs, friendship, gradual transformation, grief & grieving, home, love, May Sarton, Ned Shank, Vermont, Wislawa Syzmborska, writer's memory, writers, writing

Part 1: love / dead cat

By Crescent Dragonwagon 10 Comments

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I sometimes tell my writing students “Start out with a clear purpose, but be willing for that to change in the course of writing. ” Well, case in point. In this post, sparked by an e e cummings quote, I set out to explore the idea of how one becomes lovable… and wound up writing, mostly, about a dead cat…. Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon, Fearless Writing, self-understanding, personal growth, Writing Courses Tagged With: appreciation, cats, change, David Koff, death, death of a pet, e e cummings, Eureka Springs, friendship, gentleness, gradual transformation, grief & grieving, home, love, Momaday, narrative, Ned Shank, writer's memory, writers, writing

PART TWO: the political becomes personal (for me)

By Crescent Dragonwagon 8 Comments

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Well-orchestrated? That’s the word with which I concluded Part One of this series: the word NPR used to sum up, in a manner I considered cursory and condescending, the June 27 Clinton/Obama rally in Unity, New Hampshire, which David, my partner, and I attended. My take on that event is continued here: up close, very personal. To see and hear… Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon, self-understanding, personal growth Tagged With: appreciation, compassion towards self and others, David Koff, David Schnarch, death, environmentalism, Eureka Springs, friendship, gradual transformation, grief & grieving, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, love, Ned Shank, peace

insomniac lessons

By Crescent Dragonwagon 6 Comments

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There’s no doubt that my life would be more in sync with the way the world generally runs, if I had what are usually viewed as normal sleep patterns. I guess that is why some people use CBD products or simply smoke cannabis. Some people have aversions to smoking marijuana which is why using a vaporizer is often preferred. Fortunately,… Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon, self-understanding, personal growth, Writing Courses Tagged With: aging, appreciation, Arkansas, compassion towards self and others, friendship, getting things done, gradual transformation, insomnia, narrative, poetry, Vermont, writers, writing

blue-ribbon silliness

By Crescent Dragonwagon 6 Comments

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I’m still going through business cards gathered at April’s International Association of Culinary Professionals conference, catching up with what I scribbled on the back of each, reminders of promises made (probably foolishly, but with the best of intentions). If you look at the May 1 post, you’ll see that April was a whole month of bebopping above and beyond IACP…which… Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon Tagged With: appreciation, Arkansas, canning & preserving, cooking, Eureka Springs, friendship, love, Ned Shank, 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

#DeepFeast Recipes

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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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