Michelle Cusolito is the author of Diving Deep: Using Machines to Explore the Ocean (Charlesbridge, 2022) and Flying Deep: Climb Inside Deep-Sea Submersible Alvin, which was awarded a PEN-NE Susan P. Bloom Children’s Book Discovery Award. Flying Deep was also named a Kirkus Best Book and an NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book. Michelle recently embarked on a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) research expedition to the North Atlantic where she worked as a science communicator on board the ship creating posts for WHOI’s Dive and Discover website. Posts described WHOI’s research and provided details about life on board. Michelle also answered questions emailed by students and teachers via the “Mail Buoy.” That expedition will be documented in Michelle’s middle grade nonfiction book Window into the Ocean Twilight Zone: Twenty-Four Days of Science at Sea (tentative title; expected Summer 2024). A fourth, not-yet-announced book, will be published by Neal Porter Books, an imprint of Holiday House, in 2024. Michelle is represented by James McGowan at BookEnds Literary Agency.
Michelle has a long history as an educator of both children and adults. She’s currently an adjunct instructor at Simmons University in the Children’s Literature: Writing for Children (MFA) program.
Michelle has been a member of 12×12 since 2014 and has facilitated the book group since fall of 2015. That group reads a variety of books on the craft of writing, living a creative life, etc. and discusses them in the private 12×12 forum.
