Kristin Lattany, author, professor

Kristin Hunter Lattany, 77, of Magnolia, a creative-writing professor at the University of Pennsylvania whose 11 novels expressed black Americans' quest to belong, died of a heart attack Friday at Kennedy Memorial Hospitals-University Medical Center/Stratford.

When she retired from Penn in 1995, Mrs. Lattany left a haven for black understanding and belonging on the historically white campus.

"My black literature class became a support group," she told an Inquirer reporter that year. "People were hurting, so my office would be a hangout."

She taught creative writing, children's writing, and African American literature at Penn. She also had been a visiting professor at Emory University in Atlanta.

Mrs. Lattany grew up in Magnolia, the only child of Mabel and George Eggleston, a teacher and a principal. After graduating from Haddonfield Memorial High School, she earned a bachelor's degree at Penn.

She then taught school in Camden to please her father, who urged her to do something practical. She couldn't control her rowdy third graders and quit after four months, but the experience gave her background for her books, she said. The first, published in 1964, was

God Bless the Child

, about life in a Northern ghetto.

"I was brought up to be a lady in a middle-class home," Mrs. Lattany told a Philadelphia Evening Bulletin reporter after the book received glowing reviews, "but I've always been fascinated by the toughness of kids brought up in the street."

After leaving teaching, Mrs. Lattany was an advertising copywriter and a television scriptwriter. Her 1955 script,

A Minority of One

, won a national contest.

She was a public-information officer for Philadelphia before joining the Penn faculty in 1972.

In the 1960s, while working for the city, she monitored demonstrations at Girard College to integrate the school and met a demonstrator, John Lattany. They married in 1968.

Mrs. Lattany's second book,

The Landlord

, about a white man who buys an inner-city apartment building, was made into a movie. She was always quick to point out that the book was better than the film.

In 1968, she wrote the first of three books for young people:

The Soul Brother and Sister Lou

. The book was praised for its authentic portrayal of growing up in hostile surroundings, though some critics disliked its happy ending.

One reviewer praised her books for their "energetic narratives and lively sense of humor while relating the experiences of racial relations in this country."

Mrs. Lattany recently completed a collection of short stories and a novel about a runaway slave in Georgia based on a true story.

Though suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hypertension, and heart disease, she got to the polls on Election Day and rejoiced in Barack Obama's victory, her stepdaughter Leigh Norman said.

In addition to her husband and stepdaughter, Mrs. Lattany is survived by stepsons John Jr. and Andrew; another stepdaughter, Ramona DeMichaelis; and 14 grandchildren. She was predeceased by her former husband, Joseph Hunter.

A funeral will be held at noon tomorrow at Ferry Avenue United Methodist Church, 768 Ferry Ave., Camden. Burial will be in Sunset Memorial Park, Camden.