About The Author

“Rita R. Melissano, Ph.D. is an award-winning Poet, who has received multiple Touchstone Award nominations. Her presence in the micro poetry field has been quickly noticed and her work received special commentaries.  She has been the featured Reader in poetry events, and her poems have been published in national and international poetry journals, anthologies, and featured on websites & podcasts.  She won 2nd Place with Lee Hudspeth in the 2025 HPNC Rengay Contest and was the recipient of the Honorable Mention award of the Mt. Fuji Taisho Tanka Contest 2024.

A first-time author, she surprised the literary world by releasing not one, but two books at once and creating her own series: AIKU The Way of Love: a story told in haiku, and The Way of Love: a collection of tanka. Her upcoming third book will expand the series.

“The Way of Love” series combines her passion for poetry with her commitment to raise consciousness, promote healing & mindful living, and transmute suffering through the alchemy of love. Walking The Way is becoming who we are, aware and awakened in the place we are destined to be in this life: our heart.

To know more about the author’s rich background, dive into the visual, literary, auditory and spiritual experience offered on her personal website www.thewayof.love.

A clinical psychologist from Italy, she obtained her doctorate in marriage and family therapy from BYU, UT, feeling at home in international settings. She is a world traveler who speaks several languages and has studied all the major ancient spiritual traditions and cultures. She lives in a forest overlooking the Mississippi which inspires her writing, mindfulness practice & teachings, photography, oneness with Nature and the wonders of The Way…of Love. “