09 Wednesday Sep 2020
When you dream something and envision it, goals drive you onwards.
At the encouragement of my childhood friend, I became an SCBWI member and attended the 2013 Los Angeles summer conference. Although I wrote marketing copy or non-fiction often at work, and had developed stories and poems for fun, I never considered myself a writer. In my misbelief, only English majors became authors. That was not me. I could not write like them.
Regardless, I attended the 2013 SCBWI Summer Conference.
17 Friday Apr 2020
Posted in Poet's Perspective
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COVID-19, Lyrical Language Lab, pandemic, picture book, poetry, poetry month, Renee LaTulippe, rhyming, writer, writing
Top poet, author, and teacher Renée LaTulippe shares what it’s like working from Italy during the pandemic and her advice for children’s writers.
CHRISTINE VAN ZANDT: Welcome to Kite Tales! I’m currently enrolled in your online ten-week Lyrical Language Lab. Your instruction (from Italy!) during the pandemic has been seamless. How has teaching this course been different?
09 Wednesday Oct 2019
Posted in Author's Perspective, Poet's Perspective, Tips and Tools
By Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh
Rhymes are naturally easy for the brain to process. Their innate musicality makes their messages easier to absorb. They have a calming effect because rhymes set up an expectation and fulfill it each time a verse is completed. And kids love them.
So why are rhyming books so hard to sell?
Well, there are common pitfalls to rhyming. But there are secrets to salable rhyme, too!
The pitfall: Something rhymes just for the heck of it.
“That’s the way” and “What a day” rhyme, but if they don’t tell the story, then the rhyme is doing what I call “treading water.”
Continue reading
02 Wednesday Dec 2015
Posted in Poet's Perspective
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One of the greatest things about writing poetry myself and teaching it to both children and adults is that you are never too young or too old to express your truth. Whether you are experiencing the wild highs and lows of high school dating or marriage, whether you are a child or parent coping with divorce, or whether you are a child or a grandparent eating sticky popsicles in the summertime, through poetry you can capture what it means to love, feel fully alive, and be human.
23 Wednesday Sep 2015
Posted in Poet's Perspective
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April is a month of transition, either by finishing up your taxes or enjoying more daylight hours. It is a month which brightens up the disappearing dimness and provides us all with a nourishing chance to renew (or try again)… April is Poetry month, which snuck up on me this year again.
Aspirations and resolutions are given a moment to be checked into or revised. What time would be better matched with poetry than the vibrant month of April? Amidst refreshing showers this rebirth (or renewal) thrives. I sampled a foretaste of this renewal when Redondo Beach Public Library invited poets to read their work on a podcast in preparation for Poetry month. Waiting outside with other poets, listening to them rehearse, I revisited my own work, as well.
17 Wednesday Jun 2015
Posted in Poet's Perspective
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It’s Friday night, and I’m watching The King and I. “Et-cet-er-a, et-cet-er-a,cet-cet-er-a,” repeats the king slowly, with great satisfaction—you know the line. After a while, I begin to visualize etceteras stringing out into space:
Somewhere in space, although you can’t sight ‘em,
Meet et al., etcetera, and ad infinitum.
Just hearing Yul Brynner say his words over and over sparked my quirky little poem.
25 Wednesday Mar 2015
Posted in Poet's Perspective
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If you want to know me, there’s one simple rule: Talk to the hand. I do not say that as an expression of contempt or disinterest. Rather, I say it an invitation. A call to engage my heart and learn the truth of the man who lies beneath. For while my mouth is stopped with shyness and doubt, my fingers speak to the soul of who I really am.
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