Textual Healing

The Name

My name is Mikola De Roo. In adulthood, most people know me as Mika (mee-kah). Mikola, when said correctly, rhymes with the way they said “Ricola” on the Swiss cough drop ads that didn’t air until I had been mostly going by Mika for years. The last name is Dutch. I also have three middle names. On my birth certificate. That, plus “Mikola De Roo.” That doesn’t include the belated Hebrew name my mother bestowed upon me unofficially when I was around 15. The entirety of my name is longer than the English alphabet. Lengthier discussions about the name can be had in other forums.

When I am working, which is often:

I make my living as a communications expert and marketing strategist, writer, editor, and all-around content maven across numerous formats and platforms. Organizational strategy, website content strategy, social media, email marketing, brand building, campaign development, fundraising, grant writing, educational tools and products, trade fiction and non-fiction, marketing/media relations/communications work for corporate and non-profit businesses and individuals, evaluative reports and white papers, food reviews, book reviews, interviews, technical writing. You name it. If it involves making words and pictures come together clearly to make meaning, I’m game. I once even edited a book about the sport and art of fencing. I have also been a teacher in a variety of settings—college, high school, adult education, and summer camps for kids ages 9 to 18.

After years in trade publishing, teaching, and educational publishing, I ventured into the world of communications, marketing, and strategy, where I have been working ever since.

More specifics about where I have worked and projects and clients can be found on my portfolio and my LinkedIn profile as well as in my résumé.

When I am writing for myself:

Writing stories, usually fictional ones, is my calling, so it nourishes my self even when I’m not getting paid for it. In this way, it qualifies as both working and playing. That doesn’t mean I would object to someone giving me a salary and full benefits to do it. My fiction writing has appeared in Jam Tarts Magazine and WV Magazine of the Emerging Writer. For those who read fiction, here’s “Gallery Quarry,” a chapter from my novel-in-progress, which appeared in Jam Tarts.

In the years since I earned my MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan, where I was a Colby Fellow and a recipient of the Tyson Award for Fiction, I’ve had two or three careers, all of which involved writing on behalf of businesses, institutions, causes, executives, teachers, students, other writers, and more. Select non-fiction writing has appeared in the Des Moines Business Record‘s “Fearless” series about women leaders in the workplace, a PBS-StoryCorps blog series, TheBody.com, Medium, The Door website, the Housing Works AIDS Issues Update blog, Threading Twine, and other outlets, including this blog. For those who read personal nonfiction essays, here’s “Nose,” a brief essay I wrote and shared at a June 2019 panel.

When I am playing, which is less often but as important:

In my spare time, when I am not hanging out with my family and friends in and near Brooklyn, or on my wider travels, I can be found reading, writing (including on a blog different from this one called The Blue Streak, about cycling and raising money in the fight against HIV/AIDS), music-blogging, cooking, eating, and riding my bicycle, though I have yet to figure out a way to do all those things at the same time. My interests run far and wide, from contemplating what social justice looks like in the years to come to imagining what the most beautiful ebook would look like (not to mention how we might get people to pay enough for its contents) to discovering the perfect pork-loin sandwich.

Less well-known miscellany, but equally illuminating:

I once had a future in cheese, but I gave it up decades ago for an illustrious life of the mind in publishing.