By Cathy Shouse

For The Herald Bulletin

Author Crescent Dragonwagon recognized that something’s missing from the tradition of passing down grandma’s recipe box. Namely, a hint of which recipes are significant and why, plus how to concoct the ingredients.

So Dragonwagon’s cookbooks include the personal memories surrounding the recipes, as well as detailed cooking instructions. On July 26-28, she will be teaching her methods of putting together cookbooks at the 34th annual Midwest Writers Workshop (MWW) in Muncie.

“This is a departure from our usual workshop offerings, but a timely one,” said Holly Miller, MWW committee member, a professional in residence at Anderson University and a senior editor at the Saturday Evening Post. “A cooking memoir is a great way to blend wonderful family recipes with colorful family stories. What a creative vehicle to pass along history! Our teacher is a real pro with a James Beard Award and other accolades to her credit. She’s also an accomplished children’s book writer and veteran speaker. We see this workshop as appealing to a different audience than the writers who usually attend our seminar.”

Dragonwagon’s ideas will be helpful to cookbook authors seeking publication or families writing for their own use.

“At this moment, culinary writing is the most genre-bending form there is,” Dragonwagon said. “It can be for kids or adults, serious or flip, memoir as such, cookbook-memoir or novel with recipes. It is good writing told through one of the main focuses of human life: eating. Which often has to do with love, shelter, sense of self, home, alienation, self-care or care of others, being a child or being a parent — you name it.”

The author has had a colorful life, as described in among the recipes of her latest book “Passionate Vegetarian.” She and her late husband Ted owned an inn in Arkansas for nearly 20 years and some of the favorite customer recipes are in the book.

Crescent — a name she chose somewhat on a whim in the ’60s as a teenage bride to her first husband — said cookbook memoirs have two challenges.

“For the cookbook part, the challenge is to make it accurate craftswise, so that any person, experienced or inexperienced in the kitchen, could follow the recipe and get results identical to those of the author,” she said.

For the memoir part, the challenge is to write “transparently,” being honest even if it makes the writer look bad at times. Overall, the book should inspire readers to go cook, to think, to enjoy, be entertaining and cause introspection, similar to all good writing.

Dragonwagon cited other notable examples of cookbook memoirs as Lora Brody’s “Cooking with Memories and Growing up on the Chocolate Diet” and books by Ruth Reichls and MFK Fischer.

Miller said the conference has something for aspiring writers with no experience, up through advanced writers.

And cookbooks aren’t the only thing on the menu.

“This summer’s workshop will be special for several reasons,” Miller said. “All writers are interested in rubbing elbows with agents. We’re going to have three on site. We have also booked a police officer/novelist who will give tips on how to make crime novels authentic. Finally, our Saturday evening banquet speaker is Phil Gulley, a very successful humor writer who has a new book out. We’ve previously had Phil as our banquet speaker and he got rave reviews.”

This is the 34th year for the conference and the committee has learned to delve deeply into a presenter’s background. Agent appointments will be scheduled in advance.

“How do we select our speakers?” Miller asked. “We work on it all year. We meet monthly, trading ideas, studying publishing industry newsletters, making phone calls and checking references. Getting good presenters isn’t as easy as it seems. Often a great writer isn’t a great speaker. People may be dazzled by a famous author’s name, but they also want to learn how to improve their own manuscripts. They want to go home with lots of notes, critiques and ideas.”

To that end, conference participants have a wide selection of choices, some of them intensive sessions which have limited class sizes. Besides an intensive cookbook session, Dragonwagon, who’s authored 40 books, will offer a general writing class about writing style which she offers all over the country. For those who sign up early, professional editors are available to review writing samples ahead of time and provide guidance at the conference.







Midwest Writers Workshop

When: July 26-28

Where: Ball State University Alumni Center, 2800 W. Bethel Ave.

What: Sessions to include the following published authors

n Crescent Dragonwagon: writing the culinary memoir

n Michelle Medlock Adams: writing for children

n Steve Brewer: writing mysteries with humor

n Nicole Brown: poetry

n Dr. Dennis E. Hensley: reading and writing literary fiction

n Bob Mayer: science fiction writing

n Nelson Price: fabulous feature writing

n A dozen other writing professionals on a variety of topics

n Appointments with literary agents and manuscript reviews

For more information and to make reservations: www.midwestwriters.org, email info@midwestwriters.org, (765) 282-1055. Register by July 15 or a late fee will be assessed. For manuscript evaluations, the deadline to sign up is July 3.