Irene Latham is a poet and novelist who writes heart-touching tales of unexpected adventure. Her latest novel DON'T FEED THE BOY is about a boy who lives at the zoo. Her debut historical novel LEAVING GEE'S BEND (Putnam, 2010) is set in Alabama during the Great Depression and was named SIBA Book Finalist, Crystal Kite Finalist and earned the 2011 Alabama Library Association Children's Book Award.

A resident of Birmingham, Alabama, since 1984, she has published poems in various books, journals and anthologies, including a full-length collection WHAT CAME BEFORE, which was named Alabama State Poetry Society's Book of the Year and earned a 2008 Independent Publisher's (IPPY) Award. Her latest book of poems THE COLOR OF LOST ROOMS won the Writer's Digest 19th Annual Book Prize for Poetry and includes poems with titles like "Why Hester Prynne Still Loves the Color Red" and "How the Sacagawea River Got Its Name." Her poems for children have appeared in Scholastic's Storyworks and Scope magazines, The Poetry Friday Anthology, compiled by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong, and her first full-length collection DEAR WANDERING WILDEBEEST will be released by Millbrook Press/Lerner in 2014.

Irene loves exploring new places and often uses "research" as an excuse to travel. Her favorite characters in books and real life are those who have the courage to go their own way.

Books by Irene Latham

Can I Touch Your Hair?: Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship

Written by Charles Waters and Irene Latham with illustrations by Sean Qualls and Selina Alko - Children's 8-12, Fiction, Friendship, Poetry

Fresh Delicious

by Irene Latham - Cookbooks, Poetry

Dear Wandering Wildebeest: And Other Poems from the Water Hole

written by Irene Latham, illustrated by Anna Wadham - Children's, Picture