University alumna, professors will contribute to Miami Book Fair International

By: Becca Griesemer/Staff Writer

Although confirmed authors for the Miami Book Fair International include household names such as former president George Bush, tennis player Venus Williams, singer songwriter Patti Smith, and even a live broadcast of a Jay-Z telecast, some University affiliates can proudly drop their own names.

At least eight confirmed authors for the 27th annual event are either past or current professors, graduate students, or alumni of the University. During the fair’s final three days, chaotic traffic jams will be replaced with enthusiastic book lovers, authors, and vendors on closed streets in downtown Miami.

This year, Mexico’s literature and culture will be highlighted to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Mexico’s independence and the 100th anniversary of the Mexican revolution.

Michele Jessica Fievre, 29, a graduate student of the University’s Creative Writing Program, spoke at the fair seven years ago with “jitters,” a trembling voice and unsteady legs.

Fievre will return this year to speak about her story “The Rainbow’s End” in the anthology “Haiti Noir,” though, according to her, she’ll do so more confidently and less concerned about her strong Haitian accent.

“This piece was written before the Jan. 12 earthquake, so the places I mentioned in the story are presented the way they’ll always be carved in my mind: intact, permanent,” she said.

Another project of hers, a fantasy novel set in Haiti in 2004, was temporarily ‘put on the shelves’ after the earthquake.

“I lost interest in the book,” Fievre said. “The pain I witnessed as a volunteer translator in Haiti was so raw that fantastic fiction felt totally out of place.”

She has since revisited the book with a new appreciation, and is simultaneously working on a nonfiction book which will be her thesis.

“I love the faculty members of the Creative Writing program,” Fievre said.

She added that everything she learned about the rules of non-fiction, plot, attention to detail, and discipline, she learned through her University professors. Fievre urges students to go to the fair because it’s an inexpensive way to meet interesting people, learn valuable information, and meet famous authors.

MBFI will convene Nov. 14-21, 2010 at Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus, 300 NE Second Ave.

Weekend author sessions require online free ticket reservations at www.miamibookfair.com.

Another author will be former University professor Tom Lodge, 66, who got his doctorate in biology at the University of Miami before writing a book that would, to his surprise, become a course text at the University, “The Everglades Handbook: Understanding the Ecosystem.”

The first-time MBFI speaker intends to speak about how he worked with the late Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the woman famously credited for starting the movement to save the Everglades.

Lodge likes to speak in public, and is excited to reach another audience; however, he’s not sure what that will be, other than one that appreciates books more than just his topic.

“It seems all the talks I give are like preaching to the choir, talking to groups of people already interested in the Everglades and in how to interact with the Everglades’ restoration,” Lodge said.

Lodge will also talk about how the book came about.

Work in the academic sector was in “pretty bad shape” in ’74 when he graduated, so he made his living doing environmental consulting in the area of wet lands and wildlife. New environmental laws had caused confusion for land developers, so it was easy to find work, he said.

During this time, Lodge wrote his book.

In 1998, he was invited to teach South Florida Ecology at the University, where the first edition had been used as a text book for four years. Since he was already thinking about writing a second edition, he accepted the offer.

“I did it to see how the book was used, and how it could be improved because I never expected it to be used as a textbook,” Lodge said. He has taught five semesters at FIU.

“I’m aware that I taught a pretty hard course,” Lodge said. “One engineering student who was taking this as a requirement outside of his field said it was the hardest course he’d ever taken.”

For Lodge, the experience was not so hard.

“I found it easy to teach from my own book because the syllabus was essentially already developed,” Lodge said.

The doctor found that students generally make use of conceptual diagrams better than they do from concepts stated in words, so in the second edition he developed “Synthesis,” a chapter that consisted of putting the concepts together in diagrams.

Lodge and Fievre both said they will stick around to speak with readers after their speeches on Nov. 21 at noon: Lodge will be in room 7128, Fievre in Pavilion A.

Other confirmed authors affiliated with the University are: English professors Donna Weir-Soley, Les Standiford, John Dufresne, Heather Russel, and Master of Fine Arts alumni Patricia Engel and Preston Allen.

Fairgoers can donate new or gently used books which will form a spiral of books until the fair’s end, when the books will be donated to local jails in an attempt to have more books than prisoners inside.