Photo: Jin Kim, 2021

I’m Susanne Paola Antonetta. Welcome! I write fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. My books deal in psychiatry, neurodiversity, madness, and science, especially physics and consciousness. And memoir. I contribute to media like the Huffington Post, Ms., the New York Times, The Hill, and currently write a blog/column for Psychology Today called Madwoman Out of the Attic.

Some things I believe, in no particular order: that literary citizenship extends beyond me; that science is amazing and has more to say about our daily dilemmas and deep fears than most people think; that action movies rule; and that cats may be God’s best shot at perfection.

My latest book is The Terrible Unlikelihood of Our Being Here, out in early 2021 from OSU’s Twenty-First Century Essay Series. This book mashes up family memoir, psychiatric abuse, and science. Another book, The Devil’s Castle, is about to go to the publisher, Counterpoint.

Part of The Devil’s Castle project has been uncovering and sharing the life of Dorothea Buck, a German woman sterilized by the Nazis at nineteen, for a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Buck was an activist fighting psychiatric abuse, biological psychiatry and related psychiatric reductionism. She wrote a brilliant autobiography, On the Trail of the Morning Star: Psychosis as Self-Discovery. The book comes out in English this winter. I’m honored to have helped make this happen.

I have an irregular blog that mostly talks about writing and publishing (sign up here), some strategies to succeed, and honest talk about living as a writer. Each of my books represents dozens of rejections and re-toolings. You can make all this easier and increase your chances.

You can contact me here with requests for readings or class visits, or with your own rejection stories. Or tell me about you and your work.

For my book A Mind Apart I asked random people how they think. Not the what—the how. And the answers were fascinating. One person had an inner elevator that stopped at certain floors for particular topics, eg, family problems might be fifth floor. Another person had an inner government that actually debated. And yet another passed thoughts through differential equations.

Write me if you want to share how you think. I’m collecting answers for a book project. I’d love to know.


The Latest

My most recent book, The Terrible Unlikelihood of Our Being Here, is now out from OSU’s Twenty-First Century Essay Series. This book mashes up family memoir, psychiatric abuse, spiritualism and science to weave a meditation on time, consciousness, and what in our world can be said to be real.

Susanne Antonetta’s latest masterpiece is a divinely composed ode to the ‘ungovernable emanations’ that are ourselves.
— Mary Cappello, author of Life Breaks In: A Mood Almanack