Poets and Writers has awarded Irene O’Garden several grants for poetry performance. She has also performed at top literary venues, including KGB, Bowery Poetry Club, Nuyorican Poetry Café, The Player’s Club, The National Arts Club, and in London and Jerusalem. She’s a regular contributor to Where Writers Read, Sarah Lawrence College, and New Rochelle.
For her work in children’s literature, Irene received the Alice Curtis Desmond Award. She also won the Gold Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Best Book Award for The Scrubbly Bubbly Car Wash (Harper). Her first children’s book, Maybe My Baby (Harper) has sold over 90,000 copies. Her latest children’s book, Forest, What Would You Like? was published by Holiday House.
Irene has been awarded several residences at artists’ colonies throughout the country. In 1987, she created a performing literary magazine called The Art Garden. After producing, hosting and writing for it for 25 years, she put the garden to bed.