Welcome to the Whimsical Project, the art and literary blog of expat writer Michèle-Jessica (M.J.) Fièvre. The author of A Sky the Color of Chaos, M.J. writes from Miami (Florida), Port-au-Prince (Haiti), and Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Bolivia). She is the author of A Sky the Color of Chaos. Stories… they keep you going: All the way this way—then…
(Last updated on 05/10/16) Whimsicalit’s mission is to discover new talents and acknowledge established writers with either a connection to Haiti or ties to South Florida. We call ourselves an “unfolding magazine” because we showcase one writer or artist at a time. We may be published—well—whimsically, but we take quality very seriously when accepting poems, interviews,…
(Last updated on 08/01/16) M.J. is the author of A Sky the Color of Chaos. (Order an autographed copy here!) A Sky the Color of Chaos chronicles M.J.’s childhood during the turbulent rise and fall of Haiti’s President-Priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide – a time of nightly shootings, home invasions, robberies, and the burning of former regime members…
(Last updated on 07/11/16) In collaboration with Books and Books, The Miami Book Fair Year-Round, Orange Island Foundation, Reading Queer, The Little Haiti Cultural Center, and Undergrounds Coffeehaus, The Whimsical Project is proud to announce the 2016 Caribbean Series. During the 2016 Caribbean Series, readers in South Florida (with one event in Los Angeles, California) will…
(Last updated on 07/25/16) Dear readers, In the dyaspora, contemporary women writers of Haitian descent are changing the way the world thinks about the motherland. Through their fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, these authors explore various post-colonial themes, with topics ranging from family turmoil and personal struggles, to political and social warfare. Do you like The Whimsical Project? Support us! Women Writers of Haitian…
Updated on 02/08/16 Among other things, I write about political mayhem and exile, the limits of language, cultural identity, tradition and religion, sexual identity and feminism, family and domestic violence, divorce, bipolarity, PTSD, guilt, suicide, and so on. I also write about writing, of course. Please stay tuned. 02.08.16 Hair with Potential (about the politics of hair in…
Yes, my memoir, A Sky the Color of Chaos (Beating Windward Press, 2015), is available for pre-order! The book chronicles my childhood during the turbulent rise and fall of Haiti’s President-Priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide—a time of nightly shootings, home invasions, robberies, and the burning of former regime members in neighborhood streets. During the late 1980s and 90s,…
“M.J. Fievre’s powerful memoir A Sky The Color of Chaos is a vivid, lyric account of the perils of growing up in Haiti. It brings the headlines to the heart and leaves an indelible mark on the mind.” — Dan Wakefield, author of New York in the Fifties *** “The imagery in A Sky the…
Lominy Books was recently featured in the Miami Herald, in an article by Siobhan Morrissey titled “In South Florida, the power of small presses grows.” “By day, M.J. Fièvre works as a Creole interpreter in Miami’s Circuit Court,” Morrissey writes. “At night, she teaches writing classes at Miami Dade College. In between jobs, Fièvre finds…
Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: A Sky the Color of Chaos Humanizes the Headlines of Haiti’s Violent 1990s. Orlando, FL, September 12, 2015 – Beating Windward announces the publication of the memoir, A Sky the Color of Chaos by Haitian-American author M.J. Fievre. It is a 180-page memoir and will be published in December of…
M.J. Fievre’s memoir, A Sky the Color of Chaos (Beating Windward, 2015) will be featured at the Miami Book Fair International. The book chronicles M.J.’s childhood during the turbulent rise and fall of Haiti’s President-Priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide—a time of nightly shootings, home invasions, robberies, and the burning of former regime members in neighborhood streets. During…
Yesterday, I was a guest on the Only in Miami Show, hosted by Grant Stern every Monday night, from 7 to 9pm, on 880am The Biz in the South Florida Market and on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Tune-in Radio and iHeartRadio. The interview is available here. We discussed Haiti, and the release of my memoir, A Sky the Color of…
It’s Miami Book Fair season! On Sunday, November 15, at the Miami Book Fair International, poets Jan Becker, Leenie Moore, and M.J. Fievre will create on-demand verses for passers-by on manual typewriters. The project is called the “Poem Depot,” and it’s the brainchild of the Miami Poetry Collective. Stop by 5:30 on The Porch @…
On Wednesday, I discussed the release of my memoir, A Sky the Color of Chaos, on The Marc Bernier Show. The show airs weekdays from 3-6 p.m. on 93.5FM/1150AM WNDB Daytona Beach, Florida. A recording of the show is now posted on Marc’s website. A Sky the Color of Chaos chronicles my childhood during the turbulent rise and…
Down from the mountains men come, each with a rooster tucked under the arm, fighting cocks, some small and feisty, some huge enough to knock out with one blow. Their women follow, huge breasted many of them, like there’s hens shoved down their cotton dresses, garland for strutting champions, for he who wears the champion’s…
The artist in her own words: I was born in Lithia Springs, a suburb of Atlanta, GA and spent most of my childhood in various cities in the north and southeast. I attended a magnet art school for visual and performing arts; concentrating in painting and drawing. During high school I attended the South Carolina…
Every day, every hour, every minute, every second The stomachs growled with hunger… The stomachs moaned in yearning… The stomachs growled with anger… The anger Frustration The hunger Rumbled beneath the earth Earthquake Earth sake Forsake For God’s sake… The Hungry stomachs rumbled, So loud Not to destroy But to be heard To find solace…
My grandmother taught me Kreyòl. You must know where you come from, so you understand where you’re going, she said. Kreyòl: an open door to the culture of my ancestors. Once a year, my grandmother arrived to the US with two overweight suitcases stuffed with presents; the packages were first enfolded in newspaper, then in…
she fled from mahogany-hued skin dark velvet in winter and through spring summer skin, coated like black beans. she cried under her bed comforted by the cold of the linoleum the children on People Street said you can’t see coal in the dark. autumn skin, like eggplants they say the midwife dyed her skin purple…
Some twenty years since my mother left Brooklyn and moved to Queens, but I never met Kate in the building. And yet, she had been living there with her mother for many years prior to renting her own studio at wealthier Jamaica Estates. I met Kate’s mother first—we shared an interest in Haiti’s political drama—and…
And they came to our rescue— they came, the World: too late. My grandmother sat amongst the ruins, holding that small, salvaged piece of tile from her house— the one and only house tile. Hundreds of tiles broken as the Americans came, only to see a broken country not my grandmother’s broken dreams. This was to…
