Walk Boldly

Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, M.J. Fievre, B.S. Ed is a long-time educator whose publishing career began as a teenager in Haiti. At nineteen years-old, she signed her first book contract with Hachette-Deschamps, in Haiti, for the publication of a Young Adult book titled La Statuette Maléfique. Since then, M.J. has authored nine books in French that are widely read in Europe and the French Antilles. M.J. moved to the United States in 2002. A creator of safe spaces and an initiator of difficult conversations, M.J. spent much time building up her Black students, helping them feel comfortable in their 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 Black life. She is the author of A Sky the Color of Chaos, about her childhood in Haiti during the brutal regime of Jean-Bertrand Aristide (Beating Windward, 2015); Happy, Okay? Poems about Anxiety, Depression, Hope, and Survival (Books & Books Press, 2019); Badass Black Girl (Mango Publishing, 2020); Empowered Black Girl (2021); and Resilient Black Girl (2021). In collaboration with bestselling author Becca Anderson, M.J. has also published a productivity toolkit, Your Work from Home Life (2021).A frequent keynote speaker (Tufts University, Massachusetts; Howard University, Washington, D.C.; the University of Miami, Florida; and Michael College, Vermont; and a panelist at the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference, AWP),  M.J. helps others write their way through trauma, build community and create social change. She works with veterans, disenfranchised youth, cancer patients and survivors, victims of domestic and sexual violence, minorities, the elderly, those with chronic illness or going through transition and any underserved population in need of writing as a form of therapy—even if they don’t realize that they need writing or therapy. For her blog, M.J. has interviewed legendary writers such as Edwidge Danticat, Nikki Giovanni, and Alice Randall. She currently lives in Winter Garden, FL, with her husband, artist Thomas Logan.