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Crescent Dragonwagon

FIERCE LIFE, FEARLESS LOVE, WRITING, & CURRY

FIERCE LIFE, FEARLESS LOVE, WRITING, & CURRY

By Crescent Dragonwagon

CARPE DIEM IS NOT JUST A REALISTIC IMPERATIVE  (BECAUSE, TRULY, WE NEVER KNOW HOW LONG WE HAVE). IT’S A VIBRANT INVITATION. WILL YOU RSVP? HERE’S THE STORY OF SOMEONE WHO DOES. Here in the South, it’s the tail-end of winter, and the start of spring. As ever with the change of the seasons, I think about the cycles of life:… Read More

Filed Under: Fearless Writing, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer, Writing Courses Tagged With: IACP, International Association of Culinary Professionals, Raghavan Iyer

9 WAYS TO BUILD A CREATIVE ECOSYSTEM, GLEANED FROM A WRITER’S  FINAL BIRTHDAY PARTY

9 WAYS TO BUILD A CREATIVE ECOSYSTEM, GLEANED FROM A WRITER’S FINAL BIRTHDAY PARTY

By Crescent Dragonwagon

THERE IS NOTHING MORE SOLITARY THAN THE ACT OF WRITING. YET, NO WORK MAKES IT TO PUBLICATION IN SOLITUDE. MY LATE MOTHER’S LAST BIRTHDAY BROUGHT THIS HOME TO ME. THRIVING IN THIS SOLITARY PROFESSION TURNS OUT TO REQUIRE AN ECOSYSTEM. HERE’S HOW TO GROW YOURS. We celebrated my mother’s 97th birthday, her next-to-last, in 2012, on the front porch of… Read More

Filed Under: Charlotte Zolotow, creativity, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer, self-understanding, personal growth, writing, Writing Courses Tagged With: Aidan Chambers, Francesca Lia Block, how to be a writer, how to be more creative, how to become a writer, how to build a creative community, LGBTQ, LGBTQ-friendly children's books, Pride, William's Doll

THE 7 STEPS OF WRITING ANYTHING: YOU’RE SO VAIN, I BET YOU THINK THIS POST IS ABOUT YOU

THE 7 STEPS OF WRITING ANYTHING: YOU’RE SO VAIN, I BET YOU THINK THIS POST IS ABOUT YOU

By Crescent Dragonwagon

 “CLOUDS IN MY COFFEE.” I’M SURE I DIDN’T HAVE TO SAY ANY MORE THAN THAT TO FIND YOU SINGING CARLY SIMON’S, “YOU’RE SO VAIN.” THE STORY OF HOW THAT SONG GOT WRITTEN IS HOW EVERYTHING GETS WRITTEN. Remember “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon? There’s an apocryphal story about it. Decades ago Simon was flying across country to New York… Read More

Filed Under: creativity, Fearless Writing, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer, writing, Writing Courses Tagged With: Carly Simon, creative process, creative writing, David Geffen, how to write a hit song, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, songwriting, Warren Beatty, writing

THREE MEN I LOVED, STILL LOVE.  TWO OF THEM DEAD, ONE VERY MUCH ALIVE.  THREE POEMS.

THREE MEN I LOVED, STILL LOVE. TWO OF THEM DEAD, ONE VERY MUCH ALIVE. THREE POEMS.

By Crescent Dragonwagon

IS WRITING A WAY TO KEEP YOUR HEART AND LIFE WIDE OPEN, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU DON’T WANT TO, BECAUSE YOU’RE DEEP IN THE MONOTONOUS PAIN OF GRIEVING? SHOULD YOU? HOW CAN YOU, WHEN THERE IS SO MUCH HURT,  AND SOMETIMES, SO MUCH UGLINESS? YET, ALTHOUGH WHEN DEEP IN GRIEF WE DO NOT EXPERIENCE OR BELIEVE IT, THE OPPOSITE IS ALSO TRUE…. Read More

Filed Under: #WidowhoodWednesday, Fearless Living, grief, self-understanding, personal growth, widowhood, writing, Writing Courses

CHARLOTTE ZOLOTOW’S “SLEEPY BOOK” AWAKENS IN CHINA

CHARLOTTE ZOLOTOW’S “SLEEPY BOOK” AWAKENS IN CHINA

By Crescent Dragonwagon

A PERSON HAS A LIFE, WITH A DEFINITE AND IRREFUTABLE BEGINNING, MIDDLE, AND END. BUT, WITH A BOOK IT’S NOT SO CLEAR. I spent a recent Sunday, improbably, working on an introduction to the forthcoming Chinese edition of a children’s book entitled Sleepy Book. Written in 1956 or ’57 and published in 1958, its author is Charlotte Zolotow, my late… Read More

Filed Under: Books, Charlotte Zolotow, Fearless Writing, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer, Writing Courses Tagged With: children's book illustrations, children's books, literary executor, reissues, Sleepy Book

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

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

By Crescent Dragonwagon

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

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

By Crescent Dragonwagon

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

“fixing to” … and a message via indigo bunting

By Crescent Dragonwagon

The original inventers of twittering have been coming and going from the feeder all day today. Whenever I look out, from the bathroom window upstairs or the french doors in the kitchen downstairs, different visitors are at the cafe. Finches yellow as canaries, finches as reddish-purple as if they’d bathed in grape juice. Sparrows, in tweedy brown-gray-black-white. Black-caped chicadees. Grosbeaks,… Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon, Fearless Writing, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer, Writing Courses Tagged With: anxiety, Arkansas, birds, change, compassion towards self and others, cornbread, Crescent dragonwagon, death, Eureka Springs, fear, Fearless Writing, grief, grief & grieving, grieving, hope, indigo bunting, love, natural world, Ned Shank, resilience, spring, Vermont, writer's memory, writers, writing, writing workshops

creative discontent: lasting father-wit, & a writer/innkeeper’s ex-files

By Crescent Dragonwagon

I used to be an innkeeper. I used to be a daughter with a living father. I am neither of these things now. Yet both reside within me. Both come into my present life at unexpected times. They did today, a moist, misty day, one in which I felt slightly out-of-sorts. Perhaps this very out-of-sortness is what brought to the… Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon, Fearless Writing, Maurice Zolotow, self-understanding, personal growth, Writing Courses Tagged With: Ann-Margret, appreciation, cornbread, David Koff, death, Eureka Springs, Film, Food and Drink, gardening, gradual transformation, grief & grieving, Houdini, John Wayne, love, Ned Shank, Ricky Jay, Rumi, Steve Zolotow, T.S. Eliot, writer's memory, writers, writing

Part 1: love / dead cat

By Crescent Dragonwagon

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

buffalo girl: adventures in children’s book writing & publishing/non-publishing, screwing up, & being inspired by one very fearless child

By Crescent Dragonwagon

It's not quite a month now since I came back from Little Rock, Arkansas, where, among other things, I met the Buffalo Girl. I will probably never know her name, but I'll remember her for a long, long time. I went to Little Rock, this time, for several reasons. As y'all who read this blog regularly know, I now reside… Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon, Fearless Writing, self-understanding, personal growth, Writing Courses Tagged With: children's book writing, children's books, cooking, culinary writing, David Koff, Eureka Springs, fame, Film, names, narrative, Travel, Vermont, writers, writing

ABOUT FEARLESS WRITING™ WITH CRESCENT DRAGONWAGON

ABOUT FEARLESS WRITING™ WITH CRESCENT DRAGONWAGON

By Crescent Dragonwagon

Crescent Dragonwagon’s Fearless Writing™ is for working writers, and writers who are “blocked”, would-be, or just-starting-out.  It’s even for many people who may not think of themselves as writers… yet. As writers and as humans, we all periodically find ourselves stopped. By doubt in our own abilities. By uncertainties about the direction or style of particular piece of writing (or… Read More

Filed Under: creativity, Events, Fearless Living, Fearless Writing, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer, self-understanding, personal growth, Uncategorized, writing, Writing Courses

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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

Bean By Bean Cookbooks

#DeepFeast Recipes

More Posts from this Category

Dinner with Dragonwagon

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 for children:

A NAPPA Gold Winner
NAPPA


"... 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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