Melissa Bałut Fondakowski received a degree in Psychiatry and Religion from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York in 2013, and an MFA from Mills College in 1997. Fondakowski’s debut chapbook of poetry Impatiens, was chosen as the winner of the 2001 Sow’s Ear Review poetry chapbook competition and was published in 2002. Her debut novel, Out, was published in August 2017, and What Are You Waiting For? Seven Steps to Help You Write and Publish Your Book Now, an Amazon eBook, was published in August 2020.

Her reviews, articles, poetry and fiction have appeared in San Francisco Magazine, GIA Reader, the San Francisco Chronicle, Santa Clara Review, Curve Magazine, Lodestar Quarterly, and Many Mountains Moving. Fondakowski writes at Unfit to Print.