Michael B. Sussman's Blog
April 25, 2024
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June 23, 2020
New Spanish Edition of Duckworth!
A Madrid-based publisher, Editorial Impedimenta, has released the Spanish edition of my recent 
picture book—Duckworth, the Difficult Child—illustrated by the illustrious Júlia Sardà of Barcelona. It arrives with a new title—Atticus, el Chico Difícil—but remains the darkly humorous story of a resourceful boy coping with foolish, neglectful parents who are oblivious to his life-threatening predicament. I’m honored to be published by Editorial Impedimenta, an independent publisher that aspires to promote “modern classics.”
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June 17, 2019
Duckworth Has Arrived!
At long last, my new picture book—Duckworth, the Difficult Child—hits the shelves today. With spectacular illustrations created by Júlia Sardà, I think both kids and parents will love this story.
Special thanks to Emma Ledbetter, my extraordinary editor, and to Stephanie Fretwell-Hill, my excellent agent. I’d also like to thank Harold Underdown and Karl Monger, who were invaluable as early editors of the manuscript.
From the Booklist
review:
“What first appears to
be a Goreyesque cautionary tale for troublesome children comically turns the
tables to target inept parents instead. … Sardà plays up the story’s
situational humor in her detailed, vintage-toned watercolors, ensuring that
kids get the joke that the parents are the difficult ones, not Duckworth. A
lightly macabre, utterly amusing read.”
i
June 14, 2019
March 2, 2019
Comment on About by PJ
You bio cracks me up.
October 13, 2018
DUCKWORTH COVER REVEAL!
Here’s the brilliant cover for my new picture book–DUCKWORTH, THE DIFFICULT CHILD–to be published in June by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. My illustrator, Júlia Sardà Portabella, is based in Barcelona and has done an astounding job on the artwork. Thanks also to art director extraordinaire, Sonia Chaghatzbanian, and my fantabulous editor, Emma Ledbetter!
Duckworth’s parents think he is a difficult child, so when a snake slides right up and swallows him whole, his parents don’t believe him! What’s poor Duckworth to do?
DUCKWORTH, THE DIFFICULT CHILD is available for pre-order at Amazon.
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March 29, 2018
INCOGNOLIO Wins 2nd Prize in SPR Book Awards 2017
My psychological thriller, INCOGNOLIO, was just awarded Second Prize in the SPR Book Awards 2017, sponsored by Self-Publishing Review. Among other benefits, Second Prize includes a virtual book tour, ten+ Amazon reviews, and an author interview shared with nearly a quarter million readers. Pretty cool!
August 15, 2017
Incognolio Has Launched!
I’m beyond thrilled to announce that my novel, Incognolio, has launched and is now available as a paperback and eBook. For four years I poured my heart, soul, wit, and considerable bile into this book and I can assure you that it is unlike any novel you’ve ever read. For the launch, the eBook is priced at 99 cents and is free to those enrolled in Kindle Unlimited.
So far, Incognolio has received exclusively 5-star reviews at Amazon & Goodreads! I’m also giving away five copies of the paperback in a Goodreads giveaway running through August 18th.
I call Incognolio a psychological thriller. But it’s also a comic novel with elements of mystery, fantasy, and science fiction. Most importantly, it’s a real page-turner! And as Professor Solomon Von Pizzle of the Ludicrous Review observed: “Incognolio exudes so much pathos, it’s pathological!”
Special thanks to Karl Monger, Rebecca Faith, and Sione Aeschliman for their invaluable assistance in editing my manuscript and bringing the story to fruition. Sione understood the novel way better than I did myself—having written most of it in something of a trance—and enabled me to do a final rewrite and to, at long last, craft a satisfying ending.
I also want to thank my son Ollie who served as my creative consultant, contributing some inspired ideas, rejecting my duds, and helping me to generate a long list of unusual character names, including: Yiddle, Mr. & Mrs. Yankerhausen, Floreska, Greazly, J.R. Cosmipolitano, Quodon, and the inimitable Dr. Schmendrick.
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August 11, 2017
Comment on Atheneum to Publish My New Picture Book: Duckworth, the Difficult Child by Michael
Thanks, Lori! Sorry, I hadn’t seen your comment until now! I’ve been writing picture books all along, just didn’t sell one until Duckworth. I also have a new novel out this week called INCOGNOLIO, a surrealistic psychological thriller. Check it out!
https://www.amazon.com/INCOGNOLIO-Michael-Sussman-ebook/dp/B074GRGHKR/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
August 5, 2017
INCOGNOLIO Pre-Orders Go Live!
Here is an excellent 5-star review from Readers’ Favorite:
Entering the pages of Michael Sussman’s inexplicable – category-wise – brilliantly-executed experimental novel, Incognolio is less like walking through a dream than it is like mentally traversing the ingenious daydreaming path of a highly imaginative, psychologically aware writer who is creating an inner epic from the images produced by streams of self-conscious meditation. Yes, it is that immediate. The book itself is crazy; crazy cool. Need an example? ‘“Because I possess the Faloosh,” she replies, employing what is in all likelihood another of my made-up words. “It enables me to intuit the entire backstory of any novel in which I appear as a character.”’ Any attempt to describe the plot line of this book would be arbitrary at best. Still, it is a miracle of inspired effort that Sussman creates such a marvelous coherency to his story – as fractured, unstable, and tenuous as it is. And there is humor. Lots of funny stuff delivered with the offhand manner of a master comic’s best throw-away lines.
Incognolio is intelligent and wry, and securely at home in the surreal insecurity of the self-reflective mind. Dreams do not make good books. Insanity, however, does. Especially the insanity of a writer like Michael Sussman, who seemingly retains a most convivial relationship with the madness of the normal mind. Because that is what Mr. Sussman makes the reader feel: that all those sudden reality shifts, those changes of incidental characters, those displacements of locale and occupation – all are nothing more than the powerful experiences of one who pays attention to this little thing called life. But it is the author’s genuine creative skills that make his through-the-looking-glass words so entangled and enticing, and makes of his wonderful experiment such a grand success.
—Joel R. Dennstedt, Readers’ Favorite
