The Ocean Lives There

Born in Port-au-Prince, M.J. Fievre, B.S. Ed, earned a bachelor’s degree in education from Barry University. A seasoned K–12 teacher, a creator of safe spaces, and an initiator of difficult conversations, she spent much time building up her students, helping them feel comfortable in their own skin, and affirming their identities. Her close relationships with parents and students led her to look more closely at how we can balance protecting a child’s innocence with preparing them for the realities of life. She has taught creative writing workshops to children and teens at the O, Miami Poetry Festival and the Miami Art Museum, as well as in various schools in Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Bolivia), Port-au-Prince (Haiti), and South Florida. She’s also been a keynote speaker at Tufts University (Massachusetts), Howard University (Washington, DC), the University of Miami (Florida), and Michael College (Vermont) and has served as a panelist at the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference (AWP). M.J.’s publishing career began as a teenager in her native Haiti. At nineteen years old, she signed her first book contract with Hachette-Deschamps for the publication of a YA book titled La Statuette Maléfique. Since then, M.J. has released nine YA books in French that are widely read in Europe and the French Antilles, and she is the author of the award-winning Badass Black Girl book series for tweens and teens (in English). One Moore Book published M.J.’s first children’s book, I Am Riding, as part of a special limited series edited by Edwidge Danticat. A middle-grade book, Young Trailblazers, and picture book, A Cat Named Sam, are both set to be released by DragonFruit in the fall of 2021. As the ReadCaribbean program coordinator for the prestigious Miami Book Fair, M.J. directs and produces the children’s cultural show Taptap Krik? Krak! For her podcast, MJ has interviewed many literary legends, including Edwidge Danticat, Alice Randall, and Nikki Giovanni.