Community Highlights: Meet Melissa (Bunin) Rooney of Melissa Rooney Writing

Today we’d like to introduce you to Melissa (Bunin) Rooney

Hi Melissa (Bunin), it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for sharing your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
I am a second-generation immigrant. My mother’s grandparents (Szulecki) emigrated to the United States from Poland in the mid-1900s, and my father’s parents (Buinauskas) emigrated to the US from Lithuania around the time of the Second World War. My parents grew up in different enclaves in New Jersey.

I am a Southerner. I was born in Richmond, VA, during my mother’s medical residency. Shortly after I was born, my parents opened a dermatology practice in Martinsville, VA — home of the Martinsville Speedway, which has been on the NASCAR circuit since its beginning in 1948. My father died when I was four years old, and my “pseudo-stepfather” (my mother’s business manager and boyfriend for the next twenty-five years) was from Eden, NC. My mom still lives in Martinsville, and I have lived in Durham, NC, for the last 20+ years.

I am a woman in science. I received my BS in Chemistry and BA in English from the College of William and Mary in 1993 and earned my Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1998. From 1999-2002, I taught and did electrochemistry research at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, under a fellowship from the Australian Research Council. I am an Australian-American dual citizen, having been granted Australian citizenship in 2002, just after I gave birth to my daughter. That same year, my husband and I moved back to the United States, where he got work in the pharmaceutical industry, and I stayed home with my babies — eventually, there were three.

While home with the kids, I became heavily involved in city and county development and planning issues. Durham was starting to hit its housing boom, and I was appalled at the reckless degree of tree clearing and mass grading around me. Our waterways were already critically impaired by federal standards, and the erosion and sedimentation from these giant development sites were accelerating the situation. When construction was complete, replacing trees and other vegetation with impervious surfaces like roofs, driveways, and roads only perpetuated the problem. During this time, I contracted as a monthly columnist for the Durham Herald Sun and Raleigh News and Observer. When my kids started elementary school, I became a contract scientific editor for Durham-based American Journal Experts (https://www.aje.com/), enabling me to use my Chemistry Ph.D. more directly.

For the last ten years, I volunteered as an associate supervisor at Durham’s Soil and Water Conservation District (a federally created organization). I now work for Urban Sustainability Solutions (USS, urbanss.org), where I publicize and write grants for a workforce development program that trains and pays public high school teachers and their students to design and install best stormwater management practices (rain gardens, stream-bank stabilizations, rain-harvesting cisterns) on public and private properties, using federal, state and local funding that is earmarked for this purpose. Ten years ago, I also became a visiting public- and private-school educator with the Durham Arts Council (https://durhamarts.org/product/melissa-rooney/), through which I conduct 6-session creative writing residencies or one-hour workshops about atoms/electricity or water resources and sustainability.

I self-published my first book, Eddie the Electron (https://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/eddie-the-electron-products-9780692467435.php), to use in my atoms/electricity workshops. Eddie the Electron was published by Amberjack Publishing (now Chicago Review Press) in 2015, and the sequel, Eddie the Electron Moves Out (https://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/eddie-the-electron-moves-out-products-9781944995140.php), was published in 2017. In 2018, I hybrid published The Fate of the Frog (Mascot Books, https://www.melissarooneywriting.com/books/p/the-fate-of-the-frog; see also www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNdlDfpxvg8), which I use in my workshop about water resources.

I published Larry the Roanoke Logperch this year with Froward Press (https://frowardpress.com/). Larry (https://roanoke.com/news/local/education/roanoke-kiwanis-club-larry-the-roanoke-logperch-childrens-book/article_126e5c66-d669-11ee-a994-dfcd79f51644.html) is a book about the endangered Roanoke Logperch, whose adorable rock-flipping existence is threatened by human development and waterway pollution. The Kiwanis Club of Roanoke, Virginia, commissioned the book to distribute to families living near these fishes’ habitats. I encourage anyone interested in using this book in their classroom or at home to contact me at https://www.melissarooneywriting.com/contact-me so I can see how to get them a free copy.

My latest picture-book project, Summer Dreaming (see https://frowardpress.com/), follows the life cycle of an insect species in which only the male grows wings, presenting a metaphor that encourages children to be themselves – in all their glory and despite human-imposed limitations based on assigned gender. Forward Press planned to release this book in Spring 2024, but now that the illustrations and layout are complete, I’ve been encouraged to look for an agent, as we all believe the book could have farther reach than a new independent book publisher can provide. If anyone reading this thinks they can help me connect with a like-minded agent, please get in touch with me at https://www.melissarooneywriting.com/contact-me.

I also write reviews for Triangle Review (https://conta.cc/3OYRr6t), an email and online newsletter covering theater, dance, music, and film in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area of North Carolina, and I review picture books for the New York Journal of Books (www.nyjournalofbooks.com/reviewer/melissa-Rooney).

I’ve wanted to create picture books since I started reading them as a child, and I think that the importance and quality of this genre are easily taken for granted by the publishing industry. My writing path has been a circuitous one with many branches, but I’ve found that following my heart propels me farther than following the money.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Smooth road? Of course not. But It’s hard to be what I want to be – which is a writer who writes what they want. Going through chemistry grad school was hard, mainly because I was following a direct path to financial security, which was more than any particular interest I had in the subject. But, after years of thinking otherwise, I don’t regret sticking it out. My degree took me to my husband as well as Australia. Chemistry graduate school also gave me the material for my first picture book, Eddie the Electron, and my credentials for writing it. These credentials enabled me to find a publisher for the book. When Amberjack Publishing agreed to publish the sequel, Eddie the Electron Moves Out, I was on Cloud 9. That is until they told me it would be the last picture book they publish and that they were being sold to Chicago Review Press, which doesn’t publish children’s books.

So, I hybrid published The Fate of The Frog with Mascot Books and marketed it myself. My heart leaped when it won the 2018 Beverly Hills Children’s Fiction Award. Amazon and its affiliates lowered the book’s retail price during the holidays, which I proudly crossposted and emailed to friends and neighbors, watching excitedly as book sales rose. However, I discovered I had yet to make a single penny off these sales in February. Printing, storage, and shipping costs should be taken into account. I lost 1 cent per book sold. No matter how close I managed to get, my dream of authoring picture books wasn’t meant to be.

So I focused on my contract position as a scientific editor for American Journal Experts, a part-time, Ph.D.-required, online job I’d fallen into thanks to a friend who ran a lab at Duke University. I signed up with my local arts council to become a commission-based, visiting artist (STEM and ELA) for my area’s public and private schools. I became heavily involved in my kids’ schools, mainly writing and implementing grants for sustainable outdoor improvements. Now, I work for Urban Sustainability Solutions (urbanss.org). This nonprofit trains and hires public high-school teachers and students to install rain gardens, cisterns, and other best stormwater management practices on area properties experiencing flooding and erosion.

All in all, I am busy and content. But I still want to write meaningful picture books. So I still do. And I determinedly send them out to anyone I think might help open that path. Last year, it led me to Froward Press, the Kiwanis Club of Roanoke (VA), and Larry the Roanoke Logperch – my latest STEM-related picture book, 1000 copies of which have already been sold (to the Kiwanis). I hope this year’s path leads me to an agent for Summer Dreaming — someone interested in doing additional meaningful projects together. I now see how my financially superior Chemistry degree has fueled my spiritually superior desires to write creatively and make the world (at least slightly) better. Though time-consuming and often tedious to the point of boredom, my 10+ years as an editor of scientific research have enforced brevity and clarity in my writing, two essential attributes of good writing.

Chemistry graduate school and scientific editing have made me comfortable writing grants, enabling my work in conservation education and implementation, which I feel passionately about. This experience has given me the confidence to apply for grants on my behalf. One of these paid for the overhaul of my website in 2022. Another paid me to conduct writing residencies in six 2023-24 public elementary school classes. My Chemistry Ph.D. will benefit the publication and marketing of my future STEM-based picture books, like Summer Dreaming. Patience is a quality I am still learning. Good things happen when I stop trying to promote myself as a writer and give in to what life brings my way. It’s only in hindsight that I understand how the fragments of my life fit together to get me where I want to go.

As you know, we’re big fans of Melissa Rooney Writing. For our readers who might need to become more familiar with the brand, what can you tell them about it?
I established Melissa Rooney Writing as a sole proprietorship when I became a contract scientific editor over 10 years ago. Since then, it has expanded to include my picture books (www.melissarooneywriting.com/books), my scientific and creative editing services (www.melissarooneywriting.com/editing-services), my primary and secondary school educational workshops and writing residencies (www.melissarooneywriting.com/for-parents-teachers), and my contract conservation work for Urban Sustainability Solutions (www.urbanss.org).

Urban Sustainability Solutions (USS) is one of my top priorities right now — making the organization known to Triangle high-school teachers, students, and residents and getting them to implement the program at their schools or properties.

In February 2024, USS was awarded $220,000 in funding from the Environmental Protection Agency to install best stormwater management practices (‘bamps” like rain gardens, stream-bank restorations, and cisterns) on properties in Wake and Orange Counties. We also have the funding to pay public high-school teachers significant stipends to become trained (2 days) in designing and installing these practices and teaching the curriculum to students after school. The program prioritizes OCS (Occupational Course of Study) or EC (Exceptional Children) students, who also receive significant stipends for their participation.

As part of the training, underserved properties suffering from flooding and erosion are identified and receive BMP installations free of charge. After program completion, USS hires trained teachers and students after school and during the summer to install and maintain BMPs on properties throughout the Triangle. Participating students obtain resume-building experience that enables them to get meaningful jobs right out of high school.

If you are a parent, teacher, or admin at a Wake or Orange County high school and think you can garner 2 or more teachers to participate in the program, particularly if you have OCS and EC students, please get in touch with USS immediately using www.urbanss.org/take-action. Wake and Orange County residents whose properties are experiencing stormwater issues should also get in touch.

The dedication for USS’s latest installation, which is in the Weaver Co-Op Community in Carrboro, is on Saturday, June 1, 2024, at 102 Crest St. Carrboro from 10 am to noon, and the public is invited. I hope folks from Orange, Durham, and Wake Counties will come to find out how Urban Sustainability Solutions can benefit their properties, watersheds, and schools.

My other predominant direction is writing picture books for nonprofit causes. My latest project in this regard is Larry the Roanoke Logperch, a book commissioned by the Kiwanis Club of Roanoke, Virginia, to commemorate the Nature Park they have installed in the watershed of this threatened fish. The book has been published by Froward Press (frowardpress.com), and copies will be distributed, free of charge, to families who attend Roanoke’s 2024 Spring Fun Day at the Melrose Library and the Envision Center from 10 am – 3 pm on June 1. This has been an inspiring collaborative project spanning multiple organizations and individuals, and I would love to do more like it. If you know a nonprofit that may be interested, please contact me using the form at www.melissarooneywriting.com/contact-me. There is a lot of funding for STEM- and Literacy-related projects like this, and I am happy to help write grant(s) to obtain it. Alternatively, the book can be published and sold as a fundraiser.

Finally, I conduct several educational workshops for public and private schools throughout the Triangle, detailed at this link: durhamarts.org/product/melissa-Rooney/. My favorite is “Your Water Resources and The Fate of the Frog” — an excellent workshop for Earth Day and Seuss events (the book is written in anapestic tetrameter), during which the class makes plush tadpoles from recycled materials and learns about their watershed, stormwater management, and how the vitality of things like tadpoles and macroinvertebrates indicates water health.

I also do four- to six-session writing residencies for elementary through high school classes, during which students create professionally published anthologies (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=melissa+b.+rooney+anthologies). Within 2-4 weeks of each residency’s completion, the class’s anthology is formatted and published via the Bud Books imprint of Froward Press, and the teacher is provided with the URL by which printed copies of the book can be purchased wholesale. Ideally, each student in the class receives a printed copy of their anthology at a release party, the funding for which I can help write grants to obtain. Readers can contact me using the form at www.melissarooneywriting.com/contact-me if they are interested in any of the services described above.

So, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you before we go? How can they support you?
In addition to my answer to the previous question, I would love, love, love any help connecting with an agent for Summer Dreaming — my illustrated picture book about a species of Lepidoptera in which only the male grows wings. The book exemplifies Nature’s non-adherence to human-imposed gender norms. I’m also looking for connections to LGBTQ and mainstream festivals and events where readings of Summer Dreaming would be welcome and where I can expand my understanding of how I can help people be themselves without anxiety or fear. I’m still looking for appropriate reviewers to provide 1-3 sentences to include on the back cover of Summer Dreaming. Contact me, and I’ll email you a link to the pdf for review: https://www.melissarooneywriting.com/contact-me.

My biggest thing right now is providing a pathway of least resistance for creative solutions to flow — both alongside and through me, no matter how transiently. My current publisher, Froward Press, seeks to provide the support most authors rarely get from traditional publishers. It seems that this can only be accomplished cooperatively, such that authors crosspost and advertise each others’ books and serve as agents and cashiers at each other’s events. So, I am indeed directing new authors to FrowardPress.com.

Forward Press has also asked me to judge their next anthology for winter-holiday-themed entries—specifically the laugh-provoking stories repeated at gatherings with family, friends, and workmates. Publication depends on the number and quality of entries. Froward Press will officially open submissions in late summer, but anyone reading this can email their submission early (with the subject heading “winter holiday anthology”) to barbara@frowardpress.com.

I’m open to anything that feels right. If you want to contact me about a possible collaboration, please get in touch with me at https://www.melissarooneywriting.com/contact-me. Oh! If you’d like to check out my STEM-based picture books and purchase one or more for the children in your lives, you can view and order them here: https://www.melissarooneywriting.com/books. Please indicate if you’d like me to sign the book(s) and do a classroom reading.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.melissarooneywriting.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melissarooneywriting/
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/melissarooneywriting/; www.facebook.com/EddieTheElectron/; www.facebook.com/TheFateOfTheFrog/; www.facebook.com/TheRoanokeLogperch/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/RooneyWriting
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@melissarooneywriting