Photo credit: Mellie Rohr
Born and raised in Queens, New York, Mellie is proud to call herself a native of the Empire State.
After graduating from Hunter College in NYC, she made her home on the lower east side of Manhattan in 1996 and has been living there since. She obtained a Bachelor of Science in Public Health; a degree, she says, she has used “more personally than professionally.”
Mellie has been caregiver to three of her loved ones whom have since passed: her mother in 1994, her husband in 2005 and her grandmother in 2006. These pivotal losses have informed her decisions and life in ways that she hopes to express in her writing to hopefully make for rich reading and to share insights on a more deep, personal and substantive level.
A lover of popular culture, food, film, fun and television, she’s hugely interested in brightening other people’s lives with her writing. She says:
“Areas of mental health, specifically living with depression, is a strong area of interest for me to write about to hopefully make our women readers feel less alone and isolated. Sadly, in many ways, mental illness is still stigmatized and shouldn’t be. It is as real and complicated as cancer, diabetes, heart disease and the like, yet does not gain the sympathy, funding that the former do.”
Mellie has one nephew and two nieces. She enjoys researching and writing about issues pertaining to children, women’s health, spirituality and all animals, specifically cats. Her volunteer work at the New York City organization City Critters, Inc. is an integral part of her legacy and life’s work. City Critters is a no-kill shelter/rescue and adoption organization.
Mellie lives with her rescue cat, Bree (pictured in the photo), whom she adopted in 2009.