The Woodcutter's Christmas: A Classic Holiday Fable - Hardcover

by Brad Kessler (Author), Dona Ann McAdams (Photographer)

Unwrap the deluxe, expanded, and republished edition of one of the most heartwarming Christmas stories of our time. Each year a New York family looks forward to the day in early December when the Woodcutter arrives with his Christmas trees on the sidewalk below their apartment...until he doesn't show up..and the touching backstory behind this holiday fable.

Featuring elegant black-and-white photographs by an award-winning photographer, The Woodcutter's Christmas takes readers on a reflective journey, blending the serene beauty of Vermont winters with the bustling streets of Manhattan. Seen through the eyes of a man who nurtures Christmas trees, this story explores the contrast between nature's slow, steady rhythms and the fleeting, disposable culture of modern society. When the Woodcutter sees the trees he lovingly raised discarded on city curbs after the holiday season, his perspective shifts. After a chance meeting in Manhattan with a kindred spirit, the lessons, spirit, and meaning of Christmas is beautifully reinforced in Kessler's lovely text.

Author Biography

Brad Kessler is a critically acclaimed novelist whose work has been translated into several
languages. He won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in Fiction for his novel Birds in Fall (2006), A
Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as a Whiting Writer's
Award.

He is an educator and farmer and author of the literary non-fiction Goat Song: A Seasonal Life,
A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese. His other books include: North, a
novel (2021) a finalist for 2022 Dayton Literary Peace Prize in fiction and the 2022 Vermont
Book Award; Lick Creek (2001), a novel, and The Woodcutter's Christmas (2001). He is the
editor and co-creator of Deep North: Stories of Somali Resettlement in Vermont (2023). His
work has appeared in many publications including the New York Times Magazine, The Kenyon
Review, The New Yorker, and Lit Hub. He's received a National Endowment for the Arts
Fellowship and the Lange-Taylor Prize from Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies.

He teaches creative writing at the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles, and has
lectured at, among other places, Northwestern University, Smith College, the New School
University, and the Kenyan Writer's Workshop. He is a graduate of the Harvard Program in
Refugee Trauma and runs a small goat dairy in Southwestern Vermont alongside the
photographer and activist, Dona Ann McAdams.

Dona Ann McAdams studied photography at the San Francisco Art Institute and has an M.F.A. in
Visual Arts from Rutgers University and a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Empire State
College.

McAdams has exhibited at many places, nationally and internationally, including the Museum
of Modern Art, NYC; The Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC; The International Center for
Photography; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Library for Performing Arts
at Lincoln Center, Robert Miller Gallery and La Primavera Fotographica, in Barcelona, Spain,
Her photos are in the collections of, among other places, the Museum of Modern Art; The
Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Print Club, and the Pompidou Center.

She is the author of Black Box: A Photographic Memoir (Saint Lucy Books 2024), a book of
performance photography, Caught in the Act (Aperture 1996) and The Woodcutter's Christmas
(Council Oak Book, Fall 2001). Her work has appeared in numerous publications including The
New York Times, The Washington Post, The London Times, The Chicago Tribune, Time,
Newsweek, Stern, Doubletake, and Aperture.

Her awards and honors include the Meredith S. Moody Residency at Yaddo (2019), a Vermont
Arts Council Grant (2019), a 2018 Movement Research Honoree, an "Angel Honor" from the
Eric Carle Museum (2018); grants from the The Charles Lawrence Keith and Clara Miller
Foundation (2011, 2010), a Dorothea Dix Award from the city of Glens Falls, NY (2006), a
MacDowell Residency (1999), the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation (1997, 2000, 2004), an Obie
Award (1997), the Dorothea Lange/Paul Taylor Prize from the Center for Documentary Studies
at Duke University (1996), and a Bessie Award (1993).

Since 1983, she has been committed to bringing cameras and photography into marginalized
and under-served communities. She has built community darkrooms and taught photography in
places as diverse as New York City homeless shelters, Appalachian farming communities,
thoroughbred race tracks, and day programs for people living with severe mental illness.
In 2009 she worked closely with Maurice Sendak in establishing the Sendak Fellowship, an
award-winning residency fellowship for people who tell stories with illustration, which she ran
as the director until 2017.

She has taught and lectured at, among other places, Rutgers University, New York University,
The American Center in Barcelona, Spain, and Hostos Community College in the South Bronx,
New York City.