Crescent Dragonwagon

Crescent Dragonwagon (nee Ellen Zolotow, November 25, 1952, New York City) is a writer in six different genres, and a workshop leader. She has written fifty traditionally published books, including two novels, seven cookbooks / culinary memoirs, more than twenty children's books, a biography, and a collection of poetry. In addition, she has written for magazines ranging from New York Times Book Review to Lear's, Cosmopolitan, McCall's, and Horn Book.

Dragonwagon and her late husband, Ned Shank, owned Dairy Hollow House, a country inn and restaurant in the Ozark Mountain community of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Dragonwagon later co-founded the non-profit Writer's Colony at Dairy Hollow, and was active in the cultural and literary life of Arkansas throughout the 31 years she lived in the state full-time. After Shank's death in 2000, Dragonwagon moved to her family's summer home in Vermont.

Since the 2014 death of her subsequent partner, filmmaker-activist David R. Koff, with whom she lived in Vermont for a decade, she has divided her time between New York, Vermont, and Arkansas.

Dragonwagon is the daughter of the writers Charlotte Zolotow and the late Hollywood biographer Maurice Zolotow. She serves as literary executor to both her parents.

Awards

Dragonwagon's tenth children's book, Half a Moon and One Whole Star, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney and published in 1986, was the winner of a Coretta Scott King Book Award, as well as a Reading Rainbow Selection.

In 1993, Dragonwagon won the Name of the Year award. In 2010, the Dragonwagon Regional was named after her.

Books

Cookbooks

• Dairy Hollow House Cookbook, 1992
• , nominated for both the James Beard and IACP Awards
• Passionate Vegetarian (2002), Winner, James Beard Award
• The Cornbread Gospels (2007)
• Bean by Bean: A Cookbook (2011)
• Putting Up Stuff for the Cold Time: Canning, Preserving & Pickling for Those New to the Art or Not (1973)

Children's books

• Rainy Day Together (Harper & Row, 1971), as by Ellen Parsons, children's picture book illustrated by Lillian Hoban
• When Light Turns into Night (1975) ISBN 0-06-021740-5
• Wind Rose (1976) ISBN 0-06-021741-3 (with Ronald Himler)
• Will It Be Okay? (1977) ISBN 0-06-021738-3
• Your Owl Friend (1977) ISBN 0-06-021731-6, picture book illus. Ruth Bornstein
• If You Call My Name (1981) ISBN 0-06-021744-8, picture book illus. David Palladini
• I Hate My Brother Harry (1983)
• Always, Always (1984) ISBN 0-02-733080-X
• Alligator Arrived With Apples: A Potluck Alphabet Feast (1985) ISBN 0-7857-0010-2
• Half a Moon and One Whole Star (1986) ISBN 0-689-71415-7
• This Is the Bread I Baked for Ned (1989) ISBN 0-689-82353-3
• Winter Holding Spring (1990) ISBN 0-02-733122-9
• Alligators and Others All Year Long (1993)
• Annie Flies the Birthday Bike (1993)
• Brass Button (1997)
• Bat in the Dining Room (1997)
• And Then It Rained / And Then the Sun Came Out (2002)
• Sack of Potatoes (2002)
• All the Awake Animals Are Almost Asleep (2012)

Novels

• The Year It Rained (1985) ISBN 0-02-733110-5
• To Take A Dare (1982) (co-authored with the late Paul Zindel)

External links

• Official website
• Nothing is Wasted on the Writer blog by Dragonwagon
• Deep Feast: Writing the World through Food blog by Dragonwagon
• Crescent Dragonwagon at Facebook
• Crescent Dragonwagon at Library of Congress Authorities — with 40 catalog records
• Ellen Parsons at LC Authorities