Eileen Heyes's new book, Freedom’s Howl: The Song of the Red Wolves, is available now. Set in the Eno River Valley in 1776, the story takes readers back to a time when Red Wolves freely roamed the region. Today, American Red Wolves are critically endangered. Fewer than 20 exist in the wild, having been re-introduced into a small part of their historical range in eastern North Carolina. The book, illustrated by Anne Marshall Runyon and Steven James Petruccio, includes guidance on how kids can help save our Red Wolves. You can order it from UNC Press, your local independent bookstore (Eileen's is Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh), or Amazon.

Her previous book, the 2023 Bountiful Red Acres: Two Farms, Two Families, and a Year on the Land, has been honored by North Carolina Humanities  and the American Library Association.

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Eileen Heyes is the author of five nonfiction books for young readers and two middle-grade mystery novels. Her earlier books were honored by the New York Public Library, the Society of School Librarians International, Mystery Writers of America and the Child Study Council. Her current writing focus is North Carolina history.

She wrote and edited at newspapers for 30 years while trying to decide what she wanted to be when she grew up. In learning the craft of storytelling, she has studied screenwriting and improv, volunteered in the street cast of a Renaissance Faire, earned a certificate in Documentary Arts from the Center for Documentary Studies, and gotten her master's degree in English from North Carolina State University.

Over the years, she has taken it all back into the classroom as an instructor in Duke University's OLLI program, a writer-in-residence with the United Arts Council of Wake County, a camp leader with Cary Academy’s SummerQuest program, and a creator of two student newspapers. Originally from Los Angeles, she has lived, worked, gardened, and raised her sons in Raleigh for more than three decades.

 

Eileen is available for school and library visits, presentations to groups of any size, and manuscript editing and critiquing

 

Learn more and find contact information at Eileen's website, www.eileenheyes.com, or visit and like her author Facebook page.