Renée LaTulippe, "Limelight: Curtain Up on Poetry Comics" (Charlesbridge Moves, 2025)

Summary

Podcast Summary

New Books Network – Interview with Renée M. LaTulipe

Episode: Limelight: Curtain Up on Poetry Comics (Charlesbridge Moves, 2025)
Host: Mel Rosenberg
Guest: Renée M. LaTulipe
Date: December 5, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode celebrates the release of Renée M. LaTulipe’s new book, Limelight: Curtain Up on Poetry Comics, a poetry collection for ages 9–12 that brings the theater world alive through the voices of its elements—curtains, lights, rehearsal piano, and more—written as mask poems and illustrated in the style of a graphic novel. The conversation dives deep into the craft of writing lyrically for children, the creative process behind the book, the importance of musicality in language, and the connections between theater, poetry, and children's literature.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background and Inspiration for "Limelight"

• Target Audience & Genre: The book is geared toward ages 9–12 but is enjoyable for a broader audience. It sits “in that slot right there…although I think older kids could definitely have a good time with this as well.” (04:04–04:15)
• Publisher & Illustrator: Published by Charlesbridge Moves, with illustrations by Chuck Gonzalez, a middle-grade graphic novelist. The editor, Yolanda Scott, contributed the idea of making the book a graphic novel.

  “My editor was Yolanda Scott, wonderful thespian herself… This is actually the first book I ever sold, but it's the second [published]. This sold at the end of 2017, I think. It was a long time coming.” (04:31–05:30)

• Theater Roots: Renée’s deep connection to theater inspired the collection.

  “People say all the time, what was your inspiration for this book? It’s like, well, duh—it’s me, it’s theater. That’s all the inspiration you really need.” (06:27–06:38)

• Book Structure: Organized into “Overture,” three acts, and “Curtain Call”; the poems map onto the journey of a middle school musical.

  "It takes the reader...on the journey of a Middle School Musical production. A bunch of kids putting on a show, you know." (06:58–07:37)

• Unique Design: Each act uses a different color scheme in the illustrations, culminating in full color for the on-stage performance.

  “Act 1 is all just a two color thing. It’s blue… In Act 2, we add in some yellow. And then in Act 3… it’s full color.” (07:46–08:08)

2. Exploration of "Mask Poems" and Theatrical Elements

• Mask Poems Defined: Poems written in the voices of inanimate objects or non-speaking elements of theater, sometimes including human voices.

  “A mask poem is when the writer takes on the persona of an inanimate object that doesn’t speak… Everything, everything has a voice in here.” (08:16–09:14)

• Performance Potential: Each poem can be performed as a monologue or dialogue, reflecting Renée’s love for performance and teaching drama.

  “Every single one of these poems can be performed—as a monologue or a dialogue. That’s what mask poems are for me. They’re little monologues.” (09:21–09:45)

3. Poetic Excerpts and Illustration Highlights

• Favorite Poem: "Rehearsal Piano"
  Renée reads in a Brooklyn accent (12:00), delivering playful lines from the poem’s persona.

  “Dear singers, I must thank you from the bottom of my bass bridge for your grace and understanding. It is not every day that an old no name piano from Brooklyn gets so much attention from folks of your caliber…” (12:10–13:53)

  • Form: Epistle poem in free verse—a literary love letter from the piano.
• Favorite Poem: "Lights"
  Mel’s favorite, a concrete poem, read by Mel:

  “We hum, we flash, we make you sweat, we cue your lines if you forget. We’re amber, fuchsia, blue and green, or we’re hot, we’re white, we light your scene. We’re soft, we’re low, we’re high, we’re stark. Without us, you’d be in the dark.” (15:42–16:01)

  • Created early on; inspired by the actual cadence and persona of theater lights.

4. Renée’s Writing Philosophy & Background

• Not Prolific, but Intentional

  “I am not a terribly prolific writer, never have been… [but] I have actually been writing for the educational market since 2008, and I have nine books of short stories that I co-authored…” (18:31–19:29)

• Entry into Children's Poetry: Prompted by writing educational poetry for preschoolers, which reignited her creativity and blog activity.
• Craft Over Story Quantity

  “The writing is everything for me. We’re talking sentence level… For me, the musicality makes it easy to read something.” (25:14–25:41)

• Her Name & Roots: French-Canadian, the only family member who pronounces the surname “La Tulipe” in the French style.
• International Life: She lives in Italy, adding to her unique perspective.

5. The Connection Between Theater, Poetry, and Children’s Literature

• Picture Books as Theater
  Mel and Renée discuss their prior epiphany:

  “Picture books are theater… these are plays for daddies and grandparents who are not professional actors… The books that enable parents to be wonderful actors when they’re reading the story… are the ones that make it big.” (21:13–22:00)

• Musicality & Lyrical Writing
  • The importance of making text musical, whether through rhyme, meter, or prose cadence.
  • Renée’s view: musicality can exist without rhyme but must avoid “clunky” sentences.

    “For me, that is lyrical and that is musical, and it makes it easier for me to read it.” (28:00–28:46)

• Crafting for Performance: Both agree that writing with performance in mind helps make stories come alive, especially for families reading aloud.

6. The Lyrical Language Lab & Lessons on Musicality

• Course Overview: Renée runs the 'Lyrical Language Lab,' focusing on the musicality of language at the word and sentence level.

  “We go over all the techniques… the four major meters… sound devices… literary devices… But that’s… the outside packet. The real crux… is building awareness—of what is musical… of every single word that you use.” (36:12–37:35)

• Favorite Lesson: Focus on diction, vowel sounds, and how these create mood and transform sentences.

7. Literary Admiration and Repetition in Writing

• Parallels in Songwriting: Mel draws connections to the musicality of classic songwriters, noting the innate quality of great lyricism.
• Favorite Poetic Picture Books:
  • I Took the Moon for a Walk by Carolyn Curtis

    “It’s just so gentle… the cadence is just so beautiful and gentle… There’s that repetition… always with ‘when I took the moon for a walk.’” (39:33–39:59)

  • Sophie’s Squash by Pat Zietlow Miller

    “There’s this cadence, you know, just holding your hand just enough to love, which… just speaks music.” (38:31–38:47)

• Repetition & Parallelism:

  “Parallelism… is just a repetition of structure… look at the difference it makes instead of having all these choppy sentences… even in prose you can be musical.” (40:37–41:13)

8. Forthcoming Projects and Closing

• Upcoming Book: Music in the Trees: Saving Italy’s Violin Forest (2027, free verse nonfiction)

  • Inspired by a true story about an Italian forest that provided wood for Stradivarius violins and efforts to preserve it after a devastating storm.

    “…the book is about…the storm and the music that is contained in those trees… being freed by these luthiers.” (41:53–43:17)

• Final Poem: "Understudies Nightly Wish" (Read by Renée)

  "If only she'd sneeze / I could make my debut…" (44:42–45:31)
  A humorous and tender poem from the perspective of an understudy hoping for a chance at the spotlight.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Craft over Prolific Output:

  “I'm not prolific. I don't have, I'm not one of those people that has like 8 million stories just bursting out of me. I just don't. But when I do have one, the writing is everything for me.” (25:14–25:41)

• On Musicality in Prose:

  “I don't think things need to rhyme to be musical. Prose is musical. Free verse is music—it must be musical, it's poetry.” (26:50–27:22)

• On Picture Books as Theater:

  “Picture books are theater… if you want to write a good picture book, you have to make it easy for the person reading the book to be hilarious, sad, you know, honky, donkey, or whatever it is.” (21:36–22:00)

• On Performance and Mask Poems:

  “Every single one of these poems can be performed—as a monologue or a dialogue. That’s what mask poems are for me. They’re little monologues.” (09:21–09:45)

• On Building Lyrical Awareness:

  “The real crux of the thing is building awareness. It’s building awareness of what is musical. It’s building awareness of every single word that you use.” (36:12–37:35)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:35] Introduction to Renée and her new book
• [04:31–05:30] Backstory: selling "Limelight" and working with Charlesbridge
• [06:03–07:37] Structure of the book, inspiration from theater, and the graphic novel format
• [08:16–09:14] Explanation and examples of mask poems
• [12:02–13:53] Reading of “Rehearsal Piano”
• [15:24–16:01] Reading of “Lights”
• [18:31–19:29] Renée’s publishing and writing background
• [21:13–22:00] Discussion: picture books as theater for parents and grandparents
• [25:41] Craft and musicality in writing
• [36:09–37:35] Renée’s Lyrical Language Lab—focus on word and sentence level musicality
• [41:53–43:17] Sneak peek: Music in the Trees: Saving Italy’s Violin Forest (2027)
• [44:42–45:31] Closing poem: “Understudies Nightly Wish”

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Tone & Language

The conversation is playful, collegial, and animated by a shared love of language, literature, theater, and teaching. The tone blends humor (pun banter, funny asides), depth (craft and process), and encouragement for aspiring writers.

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Summary Takeaways

• Limelight: Curtain Up on Poetry Comics is a celebration of theater, language, and illustration, using mask poems to give life to theatrical elements.
• Renée M. LaTulipe focuses on quality over quantity, advocating for attention to lyricism, rhythm, and "sentence-level" writing.
• Picture books can—and should—be written with performance in mind, making it easy for adult readers to inhabit the text for children.
• Musicality in writing is essential, whether it arises from rhyme, careful word choice, repetition, or parallelism.
• The book is suitable for young readers, theater lovers, and anyone interested in the crossroads of poetry, comics, and performance.

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Recommendation:
A rich, inventive resource for teachers, students, performers, and literature lovers, Limelight: Curtain Up on Poetry Comics demonstrates the magic possible when words and theater converge—and how a deep love for craft can animate even the quietest corners of children’s literature.

Transcript

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

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[Commercial Announcer]

Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Mel Rosenberg]

So, Rene, welcome. Welcome back to this show. I'm saying show because you're a showgirl, essentially. And I mean in a very good way. So, Rene M. Latuli. Oui. And you're talking from Italia and I'm talking from Israel. And our friends in America are getting ready to carve their Thanksgiving turkeys.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

That's right. I'd forgotten all about it until just now. I was like, oh, wait, Thanksgiving. Yeah.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And. And we are. We're here also with a celebration where we don't have to carve up any turkeys, which is a good thing. And we get to celebrate your wonderful, amazing new book called Limelight. It has another sub. Subtext. You don't make life easy for people. Limelight. Curtain up on Poetry Comics. That's it. And it's published by Charles Bridge, Charles Bridge Moves.

Which is a great publisher. And I'm happily jealous for you.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Thank you.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And I would love to publish someday. On Childbridge and. Wow. So a few words about the book and then we're going to dive into Caspianism and everything else. And of course, awesome.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

I'm here for it.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I forgot to introduce myself. So I'm Mel Rosenberg and I am the host of the children's literature channel of the New Books Network. Rene. Yes. It's wonderful to have you on the show. So before I ask you to explain your very long name with an accent grave or an accent aq to whatever.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

An accent.

[Mel Rosenberg]

A.

Delay col. So a few words on you on your wonderful book show a few pictures, talk about the illustrator and go for it.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Oh, you just want me to just talk.

[Mel Rosenberg]

The stage is yours.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Extemporaneous speaking. All right. I used to teach that. Let's see if I remember anything. All right, well, this is Limelight poetry. Oh, I'm sorry, now I've already forgotten the name, the title. Limelight Curtain up on poetry. Comics. Comics. And it is not really middle grade. It's like age 9 to 12. It's in that little. In that slot right there. Although I think older kids could definitely have a good time with this as well. And as you mentioned, it is published with Charles Bridge moves, which is their middle grade section. I hope everybody gets a chance to publish with Charles Bridge. Fantastic experience. Fantastic experience. My editor was Yolanda Scott, wonderful thespian herself.

And she just took this under her wings. This is actually the first book I ever sold, but it's the second one.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Second? Yeah. Limit of 14 puns per person. She a thespian who took you under her wings?

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yes.

[Mel Rosenberg]

That's your first. Thirteen more.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

No, I didn't understand. What? I don't understand. I'm sorry, I missed something there.

[Mel Rosenberg]

The wings. The wings of the theater. She took you under the wing. Oh.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Oh, no, no. I can honestly say pun not intended. I didn't even think about it. Yeah. So she took me.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Those are the best.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yes. Well, because normally it would be one wing, wouldn't it? She took me under her wing and I said wings. So it was subconscious. But anyways, she herself is a thespian and she loved this book from the beginning. And it took. This sold at the end of 2017, I think it was a long time coming. Long time. So.

And that's okay. You know, it was hard, but at the same time, I. We needed to let it percolate, you know, because we. I was. I wasn't sure when I wrote it, and none of us were sure in the beginning. Like, who was this exactly for, you know, because the Poems are a little bit older, but some are younger. You know, it's kind of. Yeah, a mishmash, we say.

[Mel Rosenberg]

A melange.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yes, if we'll stick with the French. Exactly. I was looking for that word.

So anyways, it's finally out and I'm thrilled because this one is obviously very close to my heart. Having a past in the theater, a very unsung and definitely not in the. Not limelighty past in the theater, but nevertheless many, many decades in the theater in one capacity or another, especially teaching, which I love.

So, yeah, this was, you know, it was. It would have been ridiculous not to write this book. You know, people say all the time, you know, what was your inspiration for this book? It's like, well, you know, duh, it's me, it's theater. You know, that's all the inspiration you really need. Now, it was Yolanda who hit on the idea of graphic novel treatment for this. And I was iffy because I had a very artsy, painterly idea in my head. And so it took me a little bit to come around. And then I realized, like, yeah, that's not gonna work. Like, who's gonna want that? And so, I mean, just look at this. This was illustrated by Chuck Gonzalez, who is a graphic novelist, middle grade graphic novelist. It's set up in Overture, three acts and the curtain call. And it takes the reader. You know, we organize these poems in a way that takes the reader along with, you know, thanks to. Well, not along with thanks to Chuck's illustrations, takes them on the journey of a Middle School Musical production. A bunch of kids putting on a show. You know.

The classic sort of crazy for you type of plot. Hey, kids, let's put on a show. And then they do. And that's the plot.

And what I love about how Yolanda approached this, it was her idea to do this color story where the act one is all just a two color thing. It's blue. Well, one color blue. And then in act two, we add in some yellow. And then in act three, where we're actually in the show, it's full color.

So, yeah, what else can I tell you about this?

[Mel Rosenberg]

It's long.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Oh, yeah, there's 24. I think there's 24 poems. And they're all mask poems, which are my favorite things in the world to write. I love mask poems. And what is that? A mask poem is when the writer takes on the Persona of an inanimate object that doesn't speak. And so these are all in the voices. There are some couple of humans in there now and then. I mean, I couldn't resist. But.

They'Re in the voice of elements of theater. So the theater itself speaks. The stage speaks. The curtain speaks. The melancholy curtain. He's very depressed.

The audition itself speaks. The script, who is very annoyed when people go off script and just start ad libbing. Which actually is very much me, because I was a director and that drove me nuts. So that's all me telling actors, please don't do that. The scenery talks, you know, the unsung scenery. The hero behind the scenes there. Or he is the scene, so he's not behind the scenes. Yeah, right down to the ticket, the marquee. Everything, everything has a voice. And in here. And the last thing I want to say actually is that every single one of these poems can be done performed as a monologue or a dialogue. And that was something that was really important to me. That's what mass poems are for me. They're little monologues. So I could actually really see this collection being performed as a whole, you know?

[Mel Rosenberg]

Well, so it's. I can see it being performed as a play and I love that. So in this book, I see a lot of Renee. I see Renee the thespian. I see Renee the theater lover. And I see Renee the queen of rhyme and poetry. There's a lot of you in this book.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Well, yeah. I mean, isn't there a lot of us in all of our books though? I mean, shouldn't there be any?

[Mel Rosenberg]

Well, there should be, but here there's a lot of you. That's my take.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

You would be correct There. There is absolutely a lot of me in this. And I think the reason that it came to me. I'm not gonna say easily, but all of these things that are speaking in this book, I really understand them, is that in my long and non illustrious career in the theater, I did absolutely everything there is to do in the theater.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Exactly. So every poem is. You read us one poem and show us the spread, please.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Oh, gosh.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Because I love the artwork also.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yeah, yeah. The art is great. Chuck did a fantastic job bringing this to life. It was.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Read us your favorite poem here and then we'll see if it's my favorite poem.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Oh, gosh, that's a tough one.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I could choose among 24 children.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I like them all for different reasons.

I think that the rehearsal piano is close to my heart. Just because I think he's a fun guy.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Okay, go for it, Go for it.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

He's a sweet guy. I gotta find. I'm gonna look him up. Oh, in the back of the book are the poems. Just written as poems.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah, I love that too.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

I don't know, am I gonna offend anyone if I try a really bad Brooklyn accent?

[Mel Rosenberg]

You won't offend me, darling.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Oh, I'm in Italy, you're in Israel, we don't care. But I don't know about the people.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Or if you spoke in Israeli accent maybe.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

But no, I tell you because the.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I'm also. I'm also a fallen theft, you know? So.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yeah, no, I tell you. No, I tell you because the rehearsal piano is from Brooklyn.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah. And I'm a pianist.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

And how are you?

Oh, no, I can only hear his voice. Kind of like Marisa Tomei and my cousin Vinnie, that old movie. That's all I can hear. That's it. So anyways, I'm just gonna do it if I offend anyone. Apologies in advance, love. Rehearsal piano. Dear singers, I must thank you from the bottom of my bass bridge for your grace and understanding. It is not every day that an old no name piano from Brooklyn gets so much attention from folks of your caliber. When the altos sang their warm up do mi so mi do it was so rich and low, low I swooned. Then the tenors chimed in like church bells. Re FA la fare. I swayed and played on. Then, then the sopranos floated in, flitting around like they do measle. Tink, tink, tink. All I could think was, geez Louise, they're gonna make us think. So I was about to say what happened is someone left my top up. The cat hopped in, caught a claw on my bee hammer. Haven't been the same since. But I didn't have to. You laughed and I love you for that. I would snap all my strings for you. And then you all sang for hours and hours, right through the tinks. Because like me, you're real pros. You will always be close to my heartstrings. And I hope that somehow, by osmosis, you'll forever feel my gratitude in every note. Even the sour ones. Forever yours. Rehearsal piano. That's it.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Beautiful.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

That is an epistle poem written in the form of a letter, so obviously it's free verse. It could also be in rhyme if you wanted to make an epistle in rhyme. But this one is free verse, which is my first love.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Really? Before rhyming?

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Oh, yeah. No, I'm a free verser. I prefer free verse above all else. It's a little secret.

[Mel Rosenberg]

But you teach rhyme?

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yes, I do. I Know how to write rhyme. And I.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And you're. You're famous for that. So now, would you. You have handy to show the. The spread of that beautiful.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yes.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Poem.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Let me look. Let me find that again.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And then we're gonna. We're gonna Steinway instead of Stegway. Oh, that was terrible.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

We're gonna Steinway. I like it. This is the rehearsal.

[Mel Rosenberg]

It's gorgeous. So we're going to Steinway. To my favorite poem. Which is. Which, if you can guess.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Well, give me.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Well, if you had to shine a spotlight on my favorite poem in the book, what would it be?

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

What do you like Lights?

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

You know, that's interesting to me because I've seen several people have said, my favorite poem is Lights. And I thought. Oh, I would not have thought that, honestly. I mean, not that I don't. Not that I don't like it, but I. I do love the illustration for that one as well. Let's see, where is it? The lights. There it is. Page 47.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I should have. Should have warned you.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

You should have warned me ahead.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Would everyone please turn to page 46?

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Everyone turn to page 47. This is Lights.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I love it. I love.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Is a. I love the font.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I love it. I love it all.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yeah, It's a concrete poem. You want me to read that?

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah, of course. I mean, you. You don't want me to read it?

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Well, you can. Do you have it?

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah, I'm not going to. You're going to read it.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Okay. Lights, we hum, we flash, we make you sweat we cue your lines if you forget we're amber, fuchsia, blue and green we're hot, we're white, we like your scene we're soft, we're low, we're high, we're stark, we're without us, you'd be in the dark.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Okay, I think that is just brilliant.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

That is actually one of the first poems that I wrote a long, long time ago. The first poem in this book actually was written in 2012, and it is.

The actors, the one with the actors.

Where they are nervous about going on actors on opening night. That one. And I wrote that just sort of randomly. And it was published in one of Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell's books, the Poetry Friday anthologies. And then I was looking at it once and I thought, you know, I should just go ahead and write a bunch more. And Lights was one of the first ones. And Fly Person Rap. Fly Person Rap was the other one that was one of the first. So.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah, I love that, too. So a few We've had a. We talk about your life in our previous. A encounter with your previous crabby book, your wonderful crabby ballet book, which I also. Which I also love. And so just recap a few words on your career and why you have such a complicated name and why you live in Italy.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

But a little bit of everything sprinkled.

[Mel Rosenberg]

In, because I have a bunch of questions and I have a new thought.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Okay, well, we'll start with the name, because that's real quick. It's just Rene Marie Latulipe is super French, but it's actually French Canadian. Somebody somewhere. My ancestors came from the Quebec area, so I would assume that before that they came from France. So, yeah. So I'm the only one in my family who says La Tulipe. They all say Le Tulipe, which I have always found difficult to say, to tell you the truth. I don't think it flows off the tongue.

So since. Since I remember, I've always said La Tulipe. And they all. They all don't match.

So. And I don't know how I ended up with. Well, I do know how I end up with Renee because my. My brothers and sister don't have these French names or French first names. They just have regular old names. But somehow I. I don't know. I just got. I just got. I think I got lucky. I love my name. So. So that's the. That's the whole Frenchie, Frenchie part of it.

As far as what, my. What my writing career. I actually. Yeah. Before we came on Live, you mentioned you said something like, you don't write many books, but when you do, they're good. Well, thank goodness for that. And it's true, I am not a terribly prolific writer, never have been. But what people might not know is that I have actually been writing for the educational market since 2008, and I have nine books of short stories that I co authored with that. And that is still going really strong. I'm no longer with that company, but. But for 16 years, I did that. And it was actually through that that I discovered children's literature. I had. I mean, I knew that things existed. I'd read children's literature, but I never thought, like, oh, that's a career. Like, people do that. Like, I thought, you know, the books just kind of floated down from the clouds, but, you know. Yeah, the person I was working with, with this homeschooling, this curriculum company, said, oh, can you do a collection of poetry for kids? I was like, well, yeah. I mean, I've Been writing poems since I was 7. I was like, sure, why not? So that's when I began and I wrote something like 40 poems.

For this little collection for preschool. And I was like, why? And I hadn't written for 20 years. I had not written any poem poetry for 20 years. And I thought.

This is good, I like that. And that's when I just started my poetry blog and I said, well, let me just try this. I started doing poetry videos and then I've been asking other people to do poetry videos on my old blog, no Water river, which I no longer. I have not updated in many years. And then just, I just, it just snowballed. I just met people and Janet Wong and Lee Bennett Hopkins and I just loved them all. And I just had a great time and started getting poems here and there. And then I wrote Limelight, I wrote Crab Ballet and. Yeah. And at the same time I was still doing my educational. My educational writing, which I love, which I absolutely love. It's a particular challenge and teaching authors.

[Mel Rosenberg]

To be sublime in.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Right, right. Sometime in there. I think it was in 2005. It was 2014. That's right. Because I just recent. Last year I had my 10 year anniversary of Lyrical Language Lab.

Yeah. I'm not even sure how or why I ended up doing that. I just did it. I just spent eight months developing that course and it just.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I have a theory. You want to hear my theory?

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Sure.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Well, I don't know if you recall, but last time we spoke, I had an epiphany or we had an epiphany. This happens sometimes when the interview really reaches, you know, heights and something happens. And I don't know whether you recall, but the epiphany we had is that picture books are theater.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Ah, well, I do remember that epiphany. I do. Yeah.

[Mel Rosenberg]

But hold on. It has a wonderful development and that is that these are plays for daddies and grandparents who are not professional actors. In other words, if you want to write a good picture book, you have to make it easy. This was, I think, our finding. You have to make it easy for the person reading the book to be hilarious, sad, you know, honky donkey or whatever it is. And the books that enable the parents to be wonderful actors when they're reading the story, I think are the ones that make it big. That was my epiphany from the last time we talked. And actually this has influenced my own writing. I'm trying now to make it easier for people who are reading the book to read the book to the young.

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[Renee M. LaTulipe]

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[Mel Rosenberg]

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[Renee M. LaTulipe]

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[Mel Rosenberg]

Let's go do the impossible.

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[Renee M. LaTulipe]

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[Renee M. LaTulipe]

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[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yeah, and I really, really think, oh gosh, who was I just.

I did an interview, a written interview a couple of weeks ago where they asked about advice, something to focus on. And I said, the first thing that you need to focus on is craft. You know, you can have. Like I said, I'm. I'm not prolific. I don't have. I'm not one of those people that has, like, 8 million stories just bursting out of me. I just don't. You know.

But when I do have one, the writing is everything for me. Like, sentence. We're talking sentence level. You know, the big picture might actually elude me for quite some time, but sentence level, it sounds real nice, you know, sounds really good. And I really do think that that's part of lyrical language lab, too, is about finding that musicality that makes it. Because for me, the musicality makes it easy to read something.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Okay, so this. What, hold on, hold. You're preempting me here? Because this is my new epiphany for today, which you've just epiphanized.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Okay, You've.

[Mel Rosenberg]

You've. You preempted. You've preempted.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

My epiphany didn't mean feeling a thunder.

[Mel Rosenberg]

No, it's yours, Flounder. It's your show. Because. So I was thinking this morning before our interview that sometimes I go over your book and I say, okay, what is special? What is special about this? And I think that in addition to your theatrical side, is that rhyming? This has plagued me for years. Why is rhyming so important? I hardly ever rhyme in my stories. But, you know, when you're reading a rhyming story to a kid, it makes a big difference. You can call it musicality. It's la meme chose. And then I thought this morning to ask you. But isn't that part of our previous discussion that when you make a story musical and rhyming, that makes it even easier for the reader to be a.

An actor.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

An actor. An actor. Listen, I. I'm just gonna have to disagree. I don't think that rhyme. I don't think things need to rhyme for. For to be musical. I mean, absolutely not. Prose is musical. Free verse is music. It must be musical. It's poetry. So I don't think that things have to rhyme at all. And in fact, when I read. When I read stories, to my kids, I preferred always free verse or prose.

I mean, I do, you know, even funny books, you know, where you're not going to get that sort of lyrical, poetic thing happening. They still have music in them in the form usually of, like, alliteration. Or those types of techniques there. Onomatopoeia, that's all part of music. Right. But they don't have to rhyme. They. They don't have to rhyme. The only thing for me with the rhyme, if you want to make it easy.

[Mel Rosenberg]

So you're saying, okay, but I can agree with your disagreement. You're saying that the books, when they're musical in a lyrical sense, does that make it easier for the reader to be an actor?

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

I think so. Only because what are you doing when you're writing?

When you're writing lyrically, when you're writing musically.

What you're doing is you're focusing on that sentence level craft. And so I can read a sentence and be like, what a clunker. You know, that's a really clunky sentence. So the craft that I'm working on here is making that non clunky. Right. We're getting the clunks out, we're smoothing it out. For me, that is lyrical and that is musical, and it makes it easier for me to read it.

[Commercial Announcer]

So.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

So as a reader, I'm not reading along all of a sudden. Clunk. I'm not driving the car over a rock.

Yeah. For me, it's just craft. It's just craft. It makes it just easier to read in general. I mean, that's. For me personally, I prefer. I think we all prefer books that are written well, that are well crafted.

[Mel Rosenberg]

After agreeing with your disagreement, I'm going to disagree with my agreement to your disagreement because most, Most songs rhyme. And I remember as a daddy or granddaddy, reading, Reading the books that rhyme, for some reason it does something that the others don't. That. That at least for me, maybe it's my kind of musicality. Yeah. And. And I'm. I'm. In a sense, I'm jealous of people who write rhymes because of that. Because there is something. Something very engaging about it together. It makes the books very hard to sell. Another language.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yeah, yeah. Besides that. But as far as being engaging, well, yeah, there's a rhythm. You know, we are rhythmic creatures, you know.

Yeah. You know, I mean, I play in a. In the community band. Right. And when I'm playing or when I'm always sort of bouncing a little bit, and I'm always like, amazed by everybody who's like, stock still. I'm like, how can you stay still when like the drums are going? And I'm like, yeah. You know, I'm like, it's hard to play when you're moving too much. But, you know, like, I. I would have a hard time not moving when all this, you know, rhythm is happening around me and, you know. And so, yeah, we're just rhythmic creatures. So, yeah, rhyme clearly speaks to some people more than it speaks to other people. But there's a. There's a familiar rhythm to it, you.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Know, Especially.

If there's a rhythm and there's no rhyme at the end.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Well, that's just weird.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

So that doesn't work. That doesn't work. You know, I've had students who say, well, this is like iambic tetrameter. I'm like, but there's no rhyme. Like, you don't need to do a meter if there's no rhyme. Like, those two things kind of go hand in hand. I mean, unless you're Shakespeare writing blank verse and iambic pentameter, that doesn't rhyme. But why would you be doing that, really?

Unless you're like Alan Wolfe writing the Titanic book. I believe he has some in there.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I'm reminded of Alan Sherman, whom young people don't know. He was a great parodist back in the 60s. And he has this one thing, you know, that my. My wife, she took cooking lessons and she. She flunked the fried egg.

I took a skiing lesson. Then I broke my Iran, folks. I broke my arm.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Oh, no.

[Mel Rosenberg]

So people expect, you know, they expect the. The rhyme. Especially. Especially kids.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yes. Well, if you set up a rhythm and you don't deliver with a rhyme, it's annoying. You know, you're just like, wait a minute, I've been robbed. No, Meter and rhyme go hand in hand. One of the exercises that my students do is I ask them to read prose. Read some prose, picture books, and see if you can pick out moments of meter. All right? But then they get confused. They're like, wait a minute. Am I supposed to be writing the meter? I'm like, no. This is just to show you that those rhythms are the rhythms of the English language, right? And they're everywhere. It's not going to be, you know, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da all the way through. But you're gonna find. If it's, you know, well crafted, you're gonna find those rhythms. You're gonna find IMs and dactyls and all those things even in prose, because those are the natural rhythms that we speak in. But we don't. We don't wanna write prose thinking about meter. Absolutely not. But it's just an exercise. Be like, it's everywhere. Rhythm is everywhere. So. But, yes, if you are doing a set rhythm, you got to give us the payoff of the rhyme.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Obviously, when you say I am, it drives me. I am. You are.

You're the one who drives the car.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Right.

[Mel Rosenberg]

But I can't write like that. But do you think that writers sometimes write lyrically? The good ones. Okay, the good writers write lyrically without even consciously throwing in.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yeah. Yes.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And where does that come from? Because, you know, I can take your course and learn how to write lyrically. You're still giving your wonderful course.

But I think some writers have this innate ability. Is it innate?

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yeah, it's innate. It's innate. But it's also very possible to do it in revision. You know.

I write lyrically. Just. I just do. I know how to rhyme, because I just do. Nobody ever taught me. I just know how to do it. It's just innate. But that doesn't mean that I then don't go back and revise and find even more musicality or better terms of phrase that. That, you know, that match my theme. For example.

You know.

You could read it and be like, oh, well, that's. That flows very nicely. But I'm an editor more than a writer. Okay. Editing is really. I'm just better at it, I think. You know, it's just something I do. So I've got my own little editor there on my. Two of them, really on my shoulders as I am writing. So I rarely. I don't do first drafts. It's like, it's got to. That's got to be pretty much it when it comes out.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Wow.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Because I. That's why I'm not prolific, by the way, because I look at every single thing. I'm like, now that's just.

[Mel Rosenberg]

You. You have too many people on your shoulders looking at you.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

I got a lot of them. Got a lot of them. Plus the ones in my head going, no, right.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Little. Little Renate here. The. The jazz police.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yeah, one is enough.

But. So it's very hard for me to just do a rough draft and be like, okay, that's a rough draft. Like, no, no, no. That sentence has got to be near perfect when it's. When it. Before I move on to the next one. So that's not the best. That's not. I wouldn't recommend it. But I'm basically just doing what other people do in revision, right? I'm just doing it on the spot before I move on, just to drive myself insane.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Rene. This program is about helping authors include me grow in our writing. And to the extent that we become like you and have publishing deals.

With top publishers such as Charles Bridge. And I think that what you're correct, your flag is either write lyrically or go back over your manuscript and see where you can get this sense of lullabyness in your. In your text.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yeah.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Whether it's alliteration, use of different. Of soft nouns and long vowels, all the things that songwriters use, and of course, rhyme, if it suits you.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yes.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And this is. This. This is brilliant.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Well, I think the crux of the class.

Yes. We go over all the techniques. We go over the four major meters, we go over metrical variations, we go over sound devices, and we go over.

Oh, gosh, I forgot what they're called, the literary devices like metaphor and all this stuff. But that's, you know, that's the outside package. The real crux of the thing is building awareness. It's building awareness of what is musical. It's building awareness of every single word that you use. So it is not a class at all to teach you how to write a picture book or a novel. I don't do any of that. We don't ever talk about. It's all word and sentence level work. Because my favorite, favorite lesson. Lesson 11, diction. I go into the nitty, nitty gritties of vowels, vowel length, vowel sounds, how you can completely change the mood. You can transform a sentence in so many different ways just by changing the word choice and vowels that you are. You are pointing on. And I think that is really the heart of the whole thing. Everything else kind of builds out around that. That's in the middle.

[Mel Rosenberg]

It's so. It's so much the same as songwriters are taught or they know innately. I mean, like, I don't know, like, I was talking about Larry Hart yesterday. You know, Rogers and Hart before Rogers and Hammerstein. So the Hart had an uncanny knack of. Of. Of writing and also internal rhymes. And I can't see him writing blue moon and thinking, oh, you know, blue moon, orange moon, purple moon.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

But I think they can only be a blue moon. There's no other color that they could possibly be.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Exactly.

No, I don't think so. So either you have to have this innate ability. You know, I'm thinking of Pat Ditlo Miller and her wonderful book. You know, when she talks about the. It's not a watermelon. A squash, a Sophie Squash.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Sophie Squash, Yeah.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Adorable.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yeah.

[Mel Rosenberg]

There's this cadence, you know, just holding your hand, just. Just enough to love, which. Which for me is one. You have, like, a favorite thing, like that. That somebody else has written that just speaks music.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

No, I mean, I'm not a big. I mean, I have a. A classic. A classic book that I love. And now you put me on the spot. You got to give me a list of things beforehand so I can prepare myself.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Renee, I don't know the list of things beforehand.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

I know, I know, I know. It's all extemporaneous. I love that. It's a book called I Took the Moon for a Walk, which is one of the first picture books I bought for my boys when they were two. And I fell in love with it, and I go back to it all the time because one is the first time I ever saw a poem. Picture book, which is my other favorite thing. I love poem, and it's rhyming. I love poem picture books. So rather than a narrative picture book, I like just a poem.

And. Oh, who. Who is the writer? Who is the writer? Carolyn Curtis. Carolyn Curtis, I believe. And it's just so gentle. Like, if you read that, the cadence is just so beautiful and gentle, and it just takes you from one page to the next. And there's that repetition that I love. She finishes a stanza always with When I took the moon for a walk. So we'll go through. I don't know if it's three or seven lines, and then we get that repetition, repetition is just so important. And the phrase that you mentioned from Sophie's Squash is a repetition of structure, which is also really important. Right. What was the phrase again that you. You mentioned?

[Mel Rosenberg]

Just the right size. I. I don't remember. Because we're extemporaneous. Just the right size to hold in your hands. Just the right size to rock on your knees. Just the right size to love. Something like that.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yeah. That is genius.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Genius.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yeah. That is parallelism. I love parallelism, which, you know, is just that it's just a. A repetition of structure. And that's another thing that I'm always pointing out. I'm like, look at that. If you just did that, you know, look at the difference it makes instead of having all these choppy sentences in your prose. Because Sophie's Squash is prose. You know.

Think about the structure of that. Like, how can you use parallel structure or, you know, a repetitive structure to get the same thing across in fewer words and more musically? And that's a great example of it. Great example. Yeah.

[Mel Rosenberg]

So we're coming to the end of this. I love interviewing you, and my only criticism is that you don't have books coming out every year so that we can meet every year and talk about this.

But you do have a book coming out in 2027 that I'm not allowed to talk about.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

So they tell me. So they tell me.

[Mel Rosenberg]

But you are sorry, but you can talk about it for a moment.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Oh, you want me to talk about it for a moment? Yes. This is a book I wrote during the pandemic, so 2020. And it was on submission for a little bit. It's a free verse, nonfiction, and it is called Music in the Trees Saving Italy's Violin Forest.

And a friend, a writer friend, sent me an article about this major storm that went through a forest in northern Italy. And it says the forest where Stradivarius himself used to go and look for the trees to make his violins. And so other artists also, back in the. You know, what was it, 16, 1700s, there are many luthiers up in Cremona, which is in northern Italy, and they would go and they would find the right trees, you know, and they would harvest them at just the right time.

[Mel Rosenberg]

And.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

And then when they were harvested, they would know whether or not those trees had the resonance the resonance needed to make an amazing violin.

So anyways, this was centuries ago, and in 2000, 18ish, I think it was, there was a major storm that just destroyed millions and millions of those trees. And there was a movement by the luthiers of Cremona and the community to save those trees and make. And make violins that they would call the storm Collection. And so the book is about that and about the storm and the music and the music that is contained in those trees. And that how they're being freed, the violins are being freed by these Luthers.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Poetry or free verse?

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Free verse.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Okay. Renee, I'd like to, in summary for you to take out your gorgeous book, which was published a month ago.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yes.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Curtain up on Poetry Comics. Published by Charles Bridge Moves. Gorgeous, beautiful book. I saw it for only $19. It's, like, more than 100 pages. It's such a great buy. Everybody should have it. And I'm in great admiration for you.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

You can also get it at the ride.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah, but I prefer people buy it. You know, I have a book coming. I have a book. I have a book coming out in February. I want people to buy the book.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Yes, I agree.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Read another. Another poem, and then we will say goodbye to everybody, and you and I will reconvene.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

All right. How about the understudy? It's an. It's a human poem.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Yeah, it's overstated, but what we can do what's overstated? The understudy. Sorry. It's not a joke.

I can't take myself anywhere. Go ahead.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

You just can't. You just really can't. 70 having done theater.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I love this. Your book is so big. You can't find the poem. I love it.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

I know. I don't know where they are. I have to look in the. In the thing. This is Understudies Nightly Wish, which is lovely.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I love that one. I love that one. With the sneeze.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

With the sneeze, Right, Exactly. So.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Reminds me of Adelaide's Lament.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Right? A little bit. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Exactly. That's the sort of thing. And you know, having done theater in high school as well, never in a leading role. You know, you've always got that waiting to go on sort of thing. So this is Understudies Nightly Wish. If only she'd sneeze I could make my debut Step out from the wings with steady knees I'd nail every line, every cross, every cue if only she'd sneeze it's like living in parentheses this wait to break through Praying for a bitter breeze to bring on a wheeze or a touch of flu hey, stars, would you align for me, please? My life could be changed by a tiny echo if only she'd sneeze I love it.

[Mel Rosenberg]

I love it. So I'm going to wish you a lot of sneezes of other people.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Thank you.

[Mel Rosenberg]

That bring you to the Limelight. And it's always wonderful to talk to you. So I've been with Renee M. La Killipe celebrating her brand new book, Limelight. And a whole bunch of words after that.

Which you should run out of buy. I am Mel Rosenberg, the host of the Children's Literature Channel for the New Books Network. And Renee, you and I are going to say goodbye to Revoir to everybody. And in Italian, ciao. And we will wish everybody Happy Thanksgiving.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. And Mel, thank you so much for having me on once again.

[Mel Rosenberg]

Are you kidding? Write more books. I'll have you on all the time. And you and I will go and come back and bye bye to everybody else.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Okay, Bye bye.

And Doug, here we have the Limu.

[Commercial Announcer]

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[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Mutual. Fascinating.

[Commercial Announcer]

It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us?

[Mel Rosenberg]

Cut the camera.

[Commercial Announcer]

They see us.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Only pay for what you [e-mail].

[Mel Rosenberg]

Liberty. Liberty.

[Renee M. LaTulipe]

Liberty. Liberty Savings Vary. Undertaken by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates excludes Massachusetts.