Her first poetry collection, Oneiromance (an epithalamion) won the 2007 Gatewood Prize from feminist publisher Switchback Books.

A book-length version, titled Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object, was published by University of Arkansas Press in 2009.

Rooney is a frequent collaborator with the poet Elisa Gabbert,[1] with whom she has co-authored the collections Something Really Wonderful (2007), That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness (2008), Don't ever stay the same; keep changing (2009), and The Kind of Beauty That Has Nowhere to Go (2013).

In 2011, with poets Dave Landsberger and Eric Plattner, Rooney co-founded the Chicago not-for-profit poetry collective Poems While You Wait,[2] which composes typewritten poetry on demand at local libraries, street & music festivals, museums, & art galleries.

In 2020, Penguin released her third novel Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey, inspired by the true World War I story of the Lost Battalion.