Kathleen Rooney Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Poetry Books

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Kathleen Rooney is an American published author, a nonprofit publisher of literary work in hybrid genres through Rose Metal Press, and a founding member of a team of poets and typewriters who come up with commissioned poetry on demand called Poems While You Wait.

She is known for her books such as the bestseller Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk as well as Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey. Where Are the Snows is her poetry collection and it was picked for the X.J. Kennedy Prize by Kazim Ali after it was published through Texas Review Press in 2022.

Her novel From Dust to Stardust would be published through Lake Union and is based on the life of Colleen Moore, a silent movie star. She has also written the picture book Leaf Town Forever, along with her sister Beth Rooney. It came out in 2025 from University of Minnesota Press.

She is the winner of a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from Poetry magazine and has written many different books in the nonfiction and fiction genres, as well as poetry books. She is known for having written O, Democracy!, Robinson Alone, For You, For You I Am Trilling These Songs (an essay collection), the art modeling memoir Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object.

Kathleen’s first book was Reading with Oprah: The Book Club That changed America. Her first poetry collection would be titled Oneiromance, which won her the 2007 Gatewood Prize from Switchback Books.

She is the co-author of That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness, a poetry collection she wrote with Elisa Gabbert. She also wrote the chapbook The Kind of Beauty That Has Nowhere to Go. She is the co-editor along with Eric Plattner of Rene Magritte: Selected Writings, which was released in 2016 from the University of Minnesota Press.

Her reviews and her criticism have been featured in publications such as Allure, The New York Times Magazine, The Poetry Foundation website, The New York Times Book Review, The Chicago Review of Books, The Paris Review, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Nation, and more. She has been the recipient of the Adam Morgan Literary Citizen Award from the Chicago Review of Books.

She is married and resides in Chicago with her husband, Martin Seay, who is also a writer.

Kathleen teaches creative writing and literature at DePaul University in their English department.

From Dust to Stardust is a 2023 novel by Kathleen Rooney. If you’ve been looking for an intriguing book that is fictional but is inspired by real events and a real person, this is the book for you. This is a story that incorporates not only Hollywood but stardom, what it costs, and second acts. Read on to find out more about what this book is all about.

The place is Chicago and the year is 1916. Main character Doreen O’Dare is just 14 years old when she decides to get on a train bound for Hollywood along with her Irish grandmother. Not everyone who comes to Hollywood makes it, but within the course of a decade, her bob and charm have made Doreen the main movie flapper of the Jazz Age.

Her success story is one for the ages, but it also covers up for her story of ambition, tragedy, and a dangerous marriage. Her professional life may be changing, but Doreen is seeing herself trading in one dream for another. She puts all of her creative energy and her wealth into just one achievement: constructing a one ton small Fairy Castle, the type of structure that the world has never seen before.

So starts her public tour to try and lift the spirits of the nation during the Great Depression and takes on a personal journey that is one for the ages. This is a journey that starts in the era of the motion pictures and covers much of America during its turbulent 20th century. The result is an engaging novel about one woman who does her best to navigate the courses of her life while dealing with fame and real magic.

Man Overboard! is a 2026 novel by Kathleen Rooney. This is a book that has been picked as part of the Summer’s Best Beach Reads by The New York Times, which called it ‘Unexpected and heartwarming’. Daniel Kraus is a Pulitzer Prize winning author who called it ‘Funny, sad, playful’ and ‘simply resonant’. If you’re looking for something new and interesting to read, give this book a try.

This is a funny story where a former college swimmer ends up falling off of a cruise ship and must tread water to survive, all while memories and regrets continue to wash over him. Adriana Trigiani has said that this book is ‘destined to be the best book of the summer’.

Patrick Kilpatrick doesn’t like the ocean. He has always been very scared of it and now he is finding himself in a complicated situation. He finds himself drifting alone in the sea after he either jumped or fell into it. Patrick, or Kick as he is known, can’t recall what happened in part thanks to the all inclusive drinks he has been enjoying with his extended family.

Either way, he had too much and now he is in the ocean and forced to survive. He has to take every second as it comes and just keep breathing and treading water in the sea until he either gets too tired to do it and gives up or someone rescues him.

The waves keep crashing over him and as they do so do the memories and the thoughts of how it is that he actually got there. He focuses on the people he is with– the brother-in-law that irritates him, a mother that left the boat a long time ago. His family is complex and the pain of life might be tough to bear, but the more that he is out there, the more that Patrick finds that he has the will to survive.

This is a funny and motivating novel that is all about what it means to be alive and stay that way despite the course of the water, check out Man Overboard! from Kathleen Rooney to find out what happens.