Author Spotlight: Renée LaTulippe

 

Mar. 4, 2020

We are thrilled to feature our great friend, author, and poet Renée LaTulippe and her debut picture book, THE CRAB BALLET (Cameron Kids), out March 8! Enter to win a copy!

 

 

Tell us about yourself and how you came to write poetry for children.

 

Thanks for having me on Kidlit411, Sylvia and Elaine! That’s a big question, so long story short is that I’m an ex-teacher and ex-theater person who moved from the United States to Italy twenty years ago and now writes for kids!

 

As for writing poetry, I started doing that in second grade and kept on going through my first undergrad college, and then stopped for a couple of decades. It wasn’t until I started writing for All About Learning Press (they create reading and spelling curricula for the homeschool market) that I learned that writing for kids was even a thing. They asked me to put together a collection of poems for parents to read to their preschoolers and the next thing you know I’d written over 40 poems. This was in the winter of 2009-10, so I like to think I was inspired by the fact that I was very pregnant with my twin boys at the time, haha. 

 

Anyway, I was smitten and a year later I launched my poetry blog, No Water River, and began to meet all sorts of wonderful poets and writer types. And here I am!

 

Congrats on your debut picture book, The Crab Ballet! Tell us about this story and what inspired you.

 

Thank you! The Crab Ballet is a poem picture book that gives the reader a front-row seat to a seaside ballet performance featuring all sorts of creatures, from squid and turtles to starfish and dolphins and, of course, the crabs, who are the prima ballerinas.

 

This book actually started from a short poem I wrote for a contest in 2015 in which I had to use the word “iridescent” in a poem. I liked what I’d written and thought it would be fun to expand into a two-act extravaganza, so that’s what I did. And of course, I’m always inspired by where I live on the coast of Tuscany. Although I’m not a snorkeler, I never get tired of gazing at the Mediterranean sea outside my window or splashing around in it with my kids.

 

You're a well-published poet. Was your road to picture book publication long and winding, short and sweet, or something in between?

 

Long. Just long. Hahaha. I think a few thousand of us can relate to that! I feel very fortunate to have been invited to submit poems to various anthologies over the years, which kept me going while I waited for a book of my own to happen. 

 

I actually sold my first book in 2017 within a couple of months after signing with my agent, but it hasn’t come out yet. The Crab Ballet, which went on submission around the same time, didn’t sell until 2020, right smack in the middle of the worst part of the pandemic. It was such a gift! And totally worth the wait because I was thrilled that Cameron Kids acquired it. I had been drooling over their aesthetic for some time and knew they were the perfect publisher for my dancing crabs.

 

What other projects are you working on?

 

That first book I sold! It’s a collection of poems titled Limelight: Theater Poems to Perform to be published by Charlesbridge. It’s been a long wait but, like with The Crab Ballet, it will be absolutely worth it because my editor had a brilliant plan for this book that I can’t talk about yet. But it’s going to be amazing!

 

Otherwise, I am getting ready to send my first YA verse novel to my agent. What an incredible journey that writing experience has been!

 

You are such a source of information on lyrical language, poetry, and rhyme. What are the one or two top tips you'd give to aspiring children's poets?

 

Ooh, there are so many. And it depends on what they are writing. But my top tip no matter what you’re writing—poetry, prose, rhyme, picture books, novels—is to read it out loud all the time. I mean ALL THE TIME. Over and over. It’s very hard to hear the music you’re creating if you don’t open your mouth and sing it.

 

What is one thing most people don't know about you?

 

Ooh, there are so many. Ha. Here’s an annoying thing: I am a very picky eater. I don’t like anything fancy or “weird,” and by weird I mean stuff that is totally normal, like lamb and seafood and carrots and tomatoes and brownies with nuts in them. I live in Italy and I do not like wine. You do not want to invite me to your house for dinner—unless it’s a barbecue. I like barbecues!

Haha! We've known for years and just learned something new. Where can people find you online?

Website: www.reneelatulippe.com

YouTube: The Lyrical Language Lab

Instagram: @renee_m_latulippe

Twitter: 

@ReneeMLaTulippe

About Renée:

Renée M. LaTulippe is the author of The Crab Ballet (Cameron Kids/Abrams, 2022) and Limelight: Theater Poems to Perform (Charlesbridge, TBA) and has poems published in many anthologies including Night Wishes, School People, National Geographic's The Poetry of US and Book of Nature Poetry, One Minute Till Bedtime, and ThankU: Poems of Gratitude. Renée is the founder of The Lyrical Language Lab and provides free lessons for children's writers on her YouTube channel. She has a BFA in acting/directing and an MA in English Education. She lives by the sea in Italy with her husband and three children.

 

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