Melissa Rooney
Since returning from a post-doctoral Chemistry fellowship in Australia to the United States in 2002, Melissa Rooney has published several children’s books and verses in Highlights for Children, Bay Leaves, and other serials. Her children’s stories, Beyond the Dark, Milk Drinkers turning to Powder, and Counting on Me won first place in Burlington Writers' Stories for Children and Children's Poetry categories (2009 and 2016), and her sonnet Hope won first place in the 2009 Poetry Council of North Carolina's Traditional Poetry category.
Rooney's children's books Eddie the Electron and The Fate of The Frog, which won the 2018 Beverly Hills Children’s Fiction Award, form the basis of two workshops offered through the Durham Art Council's Creative Arts in Public and Private Schools (CAPS) program, through which she teaches elementary and middle school students about electrons and atoms or sustainability and rhyme, respectively.
When she isn’t writing creatively or engaging kids of all ages, she provides scientific editing for American Journal Experts, researchers, and college/graduate students, as well as freelance editing for literary authors. She is also an Associate Supervisor with Durham's Soil and Water Conservation District and reviews theater and music productions for Triangle Theater Review.
