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Crescent Dragonwagon

WHICH MEMOIR DO I WRITE?  WIND ROSE, REBIRTH & RECALL’S CANYON

WHICH MEMOIR DO I WRITE? WIND ROSE, REBIRTH & RECALL’S CANYON

By Crescent Dragonwagon

My long out-of-print children’s book WIND ROSE  just may be re-issued. Unlikely: outest of out chances, longest of long shots. Still, I needed to find a copy to send to the perhaps-publisher. I went to the shelf where I keep copies of books I’ve written in my  (this is unbelievable to me) 47-year career as a professional freelance writer (my first… Read More

Filed Under: Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer Tagged With: aging, Charlotte Zolotow, children's book writing, children's books, Crescent dragonwagon, Maurice Zolotow, memory, Wind Rose

A FOXGLOVE FLOWER FALLING REMINDS ME OF CHARLOTTE, AND WHY

A FOXGLOVE FLOWER FALLING REMINDS ME OF CHARLOTTE, AND WHY

By Crescent Dragonwagon

It’s the softest sound in the world, and one only occasionally hears it: a flower falling. This morning, sitting in the right place, I heard it. A single foxglove blossom dropped from the arrangement I had placed on a table yesterday.   It’s such a small sound, but it stayed with me all day. Until I finally asked myself, ” Why?”… Read More

Filed Under: Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer, Uncategorized Tagged With: aging parents, Charlotte Zolotow, children's book writing, Crescent dragonwagon, flower falling, If You Listen, mothers and daughters

uncovering: a yak, a six-year-old, and some witches walk into a post…

By Crescent Dragonwagon

…that particular morning, that little girl in Atlanta did have a question. A real question, and, as I have said, she asked it with solemnity and gravitas. Her manner made me wonder later if she, literal as all children are, had perhaps been puzzling over it for weeks, as I remember puzzling over why “witches” were in the Pledge of Allegiance. (“And to the Republic, for witches stand…”)
“Do you believe,” that little girl asked me, “that it’s true that you really can’t judge a book by its cover?”

Filed Under: Charlotte Zolotow, Crescent Dragonwagon, Fearless Writing, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer Tagged With: appreciation, artists, Charlotte Zolotow, children's book illustrations, children's book writing, children's books, compassion towards self and others, Crescent dragonwagon, David McPhail, illustration, Jerry Pinkney, Little Brown, 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

By Crescent Dragonwagon

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

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

Ohhhhhhh-krahoma: eat/be eaten, “write naked” , vegetable chameleons

By Crescent Dragonwagon

Ohhhhh-krahoma! (Or, the color purple). On Thursday I found actual okra plants, starts, seedlings! (If this doesn’t seem like big news to you , please go back and read the post for May 27). So maybe I will get some honest-to-goodness non "curiosity" okra from my very own garden this year. I’m still going to plant my okra seeds, though,… Read More

Filed Under: self-understanding, personal growth Tagged With: Brattleboro, children's book writing, children's books, David Koff, death, eating locally, gardening, grief & grieving, localvore, love, natural world, Ned Shank, poetry, spring, Vermont, writers, writing

A few quick post-Mother’s Day P.S.’s, re writing

By Crescent Dragonwagon

1. The New Yorker cartoon showing the sullen college-age girl in seated in a window seat, cup of tea on the floor beside her, writing in a notebook balanced on her knees. Caption: "“Dear Mom and Dad: Thanks for the happy childhood. You’ve destroyed any chance I had of becoming a writer.” 2. My late father, Maurice Zolotow, telling me… Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon, self-understanding, personal growth Tagged With: aging parents, children's book writing, children's books, Mother's Day, mothers, writers, writing

me & my semi-famous aging mother: navigating love with fierce persistence

By Crescent Dragonwagon

“Happy Mother’s Day,” we say, as if it were that simple. It usually isn’t. Complex, ambivalent,  contradictory, with more layers than a baklava: that begins, barely, to describe the relationship my mother, Charlotte Zolotow, and I have with each other. That it has at last grown simpler and less ambivalent in the last couple of years, as she has entered… Read More

Filed Under: Books, Charlotte Zolotow, Crescent Dragonwagon, self-understanding, personal growth, Writing Courses Tagged With: aging parents, children's book writing, children's books, fame, Mother's Day, writing

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

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Dinner with Dragonwagon

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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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