LIMELIGHT: Curtain Up on Poetry Comics + Interview with author Renée LaTulippe! + a GIVEAWAY!

As a lifelong theater lover and a HUGE fan (bordering on stalker) of Renée LaTulippe’s, I knew from the moment I heard about LIMELIGHT that I had to not only get my hands on a copy but I HAD to secure an interview with Renée for this blog.

As anyone who knows me knows, pretty much every time I write a blog post or do a podcast interview I sneak in a plug for Renée and her incredible Lyrical Language Lab course because I credit so much of my success as a rhyming author to all that I learned from Renée (I will say it again in case you missed it: If you have ANY interest in writing in rhyme or poetic prose, you seriously MUST take her course. It is truly a game changer, IMO).

But today, I’m not here to help Renée fill her class roster, I’m here to share with you her amazing new BOOK!

Here’s my review:

This is an ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT concept for a book, and it is done SO well. This poetry collection for middle schoolers, illustrated in comics(!), leads readers through each step involved in the making of a musical production. But wait, there’s more! The story (yes, there is a story!) is told in a series of mask poems, each from the point of view of a different part of the theater experience – from an Audition (“To get the part, first get through me/Prepare a monologue, song, or scene….) to Betty’s Tap Shoes (“Tippity tippity tappity TAP!) to the Lights (“We hum, we flash, we make you sweat/We cue your lines if you forget…”). And on top of that, (teachers take note!), the back of the book includes all the poems typed out with their original line breaks, detailed information about each of the widely diverse poetic forms used throughout, AND a glossary of theater terms. This book is truly masterful on so many levels. It not only teaches kids about all aspects of the theater and about poetry, but it is so much fun! I honestly can’t recommend this book enough. STANDING OVATION! BRAVA!

So, in other words, I hated it. 🙂

I’m SO honored to have Renée here to chat with us all about the making of this treasure!

RGL: Welcome, Renée!

RLT: Thanks for having me, Rebecca!

RGL: The concept for this book — a poetry collection of mask poems presented in illustrated comics – is so freakin’ FABULOUS! Was the manuscript submitted with this formatting idea in mind, or did that come along later?

RLT: The manuscript was submitted in the form of “Here, I made this thing and don’t know what to do with it.” The issue was the audience for the collection. I knew as I was writing it that it wasn’t for the picture book crowd, but I didn’t know exactly who it was for—MG? YA? No clue. (I think the first rule of writing is “know your audience,” so I clearly started off on my best foot there.)

This is the point when you hope the character of Visionary Editor enters stage left and crosses down center—and lucky for me that’s just what happened. It took a while to hit on the exact format, but Yolanda Scott’s enthusiasm and endless stream of ideas really made LIMELIGHT shine!

RGL: What was your writing process for this book? Were you meticulous in your planning before you started or did you just happen to write a bunch of mask poems and realize later that they could stand together as a collection? In other words, were you a plotter or a pantser?  

RLT: I am generally a pantser with a tinge of plantser—a heavy dose of winging it balanced by random list-making and late-stage attempts at organization. In this case, I wrote the poem “Actors on Opening Night” in 2012, and three years later thought I might try a whole collection. So I brainstormed topics, and made a chart and everything!

The early idea was to follow the lead of “Actors” and write a collection of poems for two or more voices, but to also use different forms. That became heavy-handed, so eventually I settled into mask poems, which are my favorite kind of poem to write. Because they are monologues! I also tried to order them into a performance arc, which of course became much clearer once we hit on the poetry comics idea.

RGL: Mask poems are my favorite to write as well. It’s so much fun to get into the head of “things” that don’t have heads (or brains)! What was the most challenging part of the making of this book?

RLT: I was immensely fortunate to be mentored on this manuscript by Lee Bennett Hopkins, who gave me both his unwavering support and his complete honesty. He was a loving but tough editor who sent me back to the drawing board time and again, pushing me to make the poems better and better.

This could be very frustrating, and there were some poems I thought I’d never get right. He was particularly hard on my original costume poem, which was written in the single voice of the regal gown, and which he thought I should cut no matter how I revised it. When I finally hit on making it a choral poem with multiple voices, it was a sweet relief to get his email: “Dear Revision Queen: Damn! Am I glad I kept at you on this.” Haha. And so was I.

RGL: I love that story. It is so important to have people who push us and our writing, isn’t it? Can you tell us a bit about the acquisition process? As someone who has yet to crack the selling-a-poetry-collection nut, what can I (ahem, I mean, our readers, of course) do to give our collections the best chance of becoming real books one day?  

RLT: LIMELIGHT was the first manuscript I sold and was a case of “right manuscript, right place, right person, right time”—a charmed path that no one should ever expect. My then-agent submitted it to three publishers in October 2017, it was sent to acquisitions at Charlesbridge in December 2017, and I received the offer in February 2018. (That it took so many years to come out is just one of those publishing things we have no control over. Best to put it out of mind and move on with other projects.)

As for cracking the nut … you can probably find more knowledgeable nutcrackers than I, but in a nutshell, here are some important elements to keep in mind:

• a single topic/theme/concept that hasn’t been done to death or that you’ve put a unique spin on
• an arc (even a simple one can work, like morning to night)
• well-crafted and unified poems
• a teaching element (sidebars or back matter, poetic forms, your focused theme, etc.)

Poet Laura Purdie Salas has an excellent post on this topic that goes into greater detail on each point and more! How to Gather Poems for a Poetry Collection

RGL: Such a great adivce, and I’ll definitely check out Laura’s post! And now, my favorite question to ask my guests: What is one question no one has yet to ask you about the making of this book that you would love to answer? (And what’s the answer?!)

RLT: Why did you write about theater?

My years in theater were not illustrious or even notable in any way, but they were many and they were important. I was so pleased when the SLJ review said LIMELIGHT was “a series of love letters to an art form”—I had never thought of it that way, but it’s exactly right. In earlier days, theater was a salvation, a place to grow and discover and belong. I was in love with every single aspect of it. So this particular manuscript has always been very special to me—not just a love letter, but a “thanks for being there” hug to a dear old friend. 

RGL: I love that so much. You are AMAZING, Renée! Thank you so much for stopping by and giving us a peek behind the curtain (see what I did there?)

Readers, there is a GIVEAWAY! Renée has generously agreed to send a copy of LIMELIGHT to one lucky winner (US-mainland addresses only, please!). To enter, simply comment on this post. I’ll announce the winner at the end of my next post, slated for December 9th!

And the winner of last month’s GIVEAWAY, a copy of SOME DAYS I’M THE WIND or a 30-minute Ask-Me-Anything Zoom call with me is….

***CLAIRE BLUMENFELD!!!***

Congrats Claire! Please email me at RebeccaWrites4Kids@Gmail.com to claim your prize!

Renée’s Bio:

Renée M. LaTulippe is a poet, writer, and lifelong theater person. She is the author of the poem picture book The Crab Ballet and has poems published in many anthologies. She lives in Italy with her husband and three children. www.reneelatulippe.com