The Tale Of The Wicked Old Woman And The Very Nice 'Beast' Of Crouch End

This is a fable of what happens if you try to seize beauty and freeze time, serious yet whimsical, full of myth and magic, contemporary reality and joyful fantasy, centered around a cat always in danger of being too big or too small. It is set long ago, a "Once Upon a Time" story that unfolds seamlessly among modern children and their parents and School in a contemporary urban setting. This is a fable of a woman long ago who tries to keep her beautiful daughter to herself, yet is so saddened that things wilt in her presence and die at her touch when she loses her daughter to a handsome stranger. Magically, she lives into the modern era nursing her resentment until she meets a little girl called Daisy. Everyone and everything blooms in Daisy's delightful presence, who has a 'green thumb' to challenge all green thumbs! Try as she does, the sad, now old, woman has no effect on Daisy until the mysterious gift of a kitten, Little Boots, brings Daisy and her family to grief. For the kitten won't stop growing, until their neighbors and the other parents and children at School turn on Daisy and her family. The local Council representative decides Little Boots may be a rare, semi-mythical English 'Beast' yet must go, along with Daisy and her family. Climactically Daisy discovers it is all the Old Woman's doing and finds how to reverse what has been a subtle spell on Little Boots, facing then the problem of keeping her cat from growing too small! The children and parents confront the Old Woman, who retreats before Daisy, at whose touch flowers grow and the Old Woman's wooden home bursts into growth and flowers as she disappears. Parents will find as much to enjoy in this "fable for children and their parents" as their children, who will all want a garden as beautiful as Daisy's and a family as happy!

My poems, stories and articles have appeared widely in both American and English journals. Books of poetry include Wrestling With The Angel (1990), Becoming Human (2001), Human/Nature< (2006), Seasons of Defiance (a finalist in the 8th. National USA Book Awards 2010, Transformations (2013), Homecomings (2015), and Elemental Natures, selected lyrics, sequences, and prose (2020).
 
My plays Rasputin and Gambits were produced at the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference.  Time's Up and  Fox, Hound, and Huntress were premiered in Los Angeles; publications include Time's Up, Fox, Hound and Huntress, and Time's Up and Other Plays.
 
I founded graduate playwrighting and the graduate screenwriting programs respectively at USC and California State University, Northridge.Books on screenwriting include The Understructure of Writing for Film and Television, A Poetics for Screenwriters, and The Death and Life of Drama, reflections on writing and human nature.
 
Second Chances, a novel appeared  in (2001).
 
Under my own trademark, LWL Books, I have published: Orpheus Rising  (a Kirkus Indie Best Book of 2021), The Tale of Brian and the House Painter Mervyn (Readers' Favorite Bronze Medal 2022), and FAMILY MATTERS (a family/cultural memoir 2022); also children's fables, The Tale Of Brian And The House Painter, Mervyn, (2022), The Tale Of The Animals' Christmas In Crouch End, 2023. The Tale Of Mr. Crocodile Takes Tea, and The Tale of The Wicked Old Woman And The Very Nice 'Beast' Of Crouch End, both in 2025.