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Crescent Dragonwagon

BLOSSOMING, NO MATTER WHAT: A CHRISTMAS (CACTUS) STORY

BLOSSOMING, NO MATTER WHAT: A CHRISTMAS (CACTUS) STORY

By Crescent Dragonwagon

SOMETHING, SOMEWHERE, IS BLOOMING. NOW.  IT MAY NOT BE THE PLANT YOU WANTED OR EXPECTED. ITS TIMING MAY BE OFF, OR ODD, OR MYSTERIOUS. BUT BEFORE YOU GIVE OVER TO  DESPAIR, — EASY, IN THESE DIFFICULT AND UNENDINGLY STRESSFUL TIMES —  LOOK FOR THE BUD, THE BLOSSOM. IF IT CAN FLOWER IMPROBABLY, SO CAN YOU. 2012 was the last full… Read More

Filed Under: Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer Tagged With: aging, aging parents, Arkansas, Charlotte Zolotow, Christmas cactus, compassion towards self and others, David Koff, death, eldercare, friendship, grief, grieving, love, memoir, memoir-writing, 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

the deer’s ears: Mose, me, misery & moments

By Crescent Dragonwagon

Today, coming down to the hill towards the pond, beginning my morning walk, two animals — one large, one small — standing in the middle of the gravel road. I caught my breath, stood stock-still, blinked and waited, blinking a few times to clear my not-so-good vision so I could identify them. Ah. A white-tailed deer, and – what was… Read More

Filed Under: Charlotte Zolotow, Crescent Dragonwagon Tagged With: aging, aging parents, appreciation, Arkansas, Bounding, cat, cats, change, Charlotte Zolotow, Crescent dragonwagon, David Koff, death, deer, eldercare, eldercare, environmentalism, Eureka Springs, ferns, grief & grieving, home, love, Mose Allison, Mose Allison, mother, mothers, natural balance, natural predators, natural world, photography, poetry, Traca Savadago, Vermont, walking, walking, walks, woods, writer, writers, writing, 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

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

By Crescent Dragonwagon

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

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 2: love/ let sleeping cats tell the truth

By Crescent Dragonwagon

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

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

The Arc of the Moral Universe: Bush, Barack, & the Bend Towards Justice

By Crescent Dragonwagon

January 20, 2009: the swearing in of America's 44th president, Barack Obama. I watched it quietly here in Vermont  —the first state in the union to declare for Obama back on that glorious election night in November, as most Vermonters will tell you with modest pride. (Quietly, that is, except when singing. Above, standing for The Star-Spangled Banner, facing the… Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon, self-understanding, personal growth Tagged With: arc of the moral universe, Aretha Franklin, change, David Koff, environmentalism, George Bush, gradual transformation, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Martin Luther King, Jr., Television, Vermont

“50 year old shoulder”

By Crescent Dragonwagon

If I want to eat anything else, I have 15 minutes in which to do it. No solid food after midnight. When I hurt my left shoulder about a decade ago, some now-forgotten person said to me, “Rotator cuff, probably. Rotator cuffs just wear out. You know what they call it in Chinese medicine? ‘Fifty year-old shoulder.’” My friend had… Read More

Filed Under: Charlotte Zolotow, Crescent Dragonwagon, self-understanding, personal growth Tagged With: aging, appreciation, compassion towards self and others, cooking, David Koff, getting things done, gradual transformation, health, love, narrative, organization, Surgery, writers, writing

several big “O”s (including, but not limited to, October and Obama)

By Crescent Dragonwagon

It is the best of times; it is the worst of times. It is October in Vermont. It is an election year (and what an election). It is the month of the year that was Ned’s last full month on earth. The best: the transition of the leaves from verdant to plush flame, fuchsia, gold, ochre, orange, salmon, a hundred… Read More

Filed Under: Crescent Dragonwagon, self-understanding, personal growth Tagged With: aging, aging parents, compassion towards self and others, David Koff, death, eldercare, gradual transformation, grief & grieving, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, love, natural world, Ned Shank, oyster mushrooms, puffballs, poetry, sexuality, Vermont, writing, Yeats

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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

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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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