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Marivir R. Montebon is the executive editor and publisher of OSM! online magazine that she founded in 2012. Branding on positive journalism, OSM! is now being read by over 4 million people worldwide.
Marivir considers journalism not only a career but a commitment and contribution to humanity. She writes for Huffington Post and is currently handling a writing mentorship program called Aspiring Writers Mentoring Program for the National Writers Union Support Organization in New York.
Marivir earned a BA in Psychology at the University of San Carlos in Cebu City, where she was born. She is pursuing her advanced studies in the Big Apple.
In 2013, Marivir published her third book, Biting the Big Apple - Memoirs of a Journalist turned Immigrant. On the same year, she was awarded Woman in Media award by the Pan American Citizens Action League in New Jersey for her community reportage on immigration and women.
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In Marivir’s charming fable, the Little League coach tells Gabriella only boys can play on his team. Vowing not to give up, Gabbie returns dressed as a boy. She hits the ball, she catches the ball and she runs the bases so well, makes the team.
But Gabbie feels bad, because she did not tell her mother she will be pretending to be a boy - Gabriel.
Still, Gabbie is happy to prove she is just as good as the boys…until the big game. With her team losing by two runs and with two outs in the last inning, Gabbie comes to the plate, afraid she will strike out and lose the game.
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Biting the Big Apple lends an insightful and inspiring presentation of immigration patterns in the U.S., aside from the fact that it is at times funny and exciting. Her own diaspora is not a typical one, however: Immigration was her only choice after her husband, a leader of the Filipino political party Bayan Muna in Bohol, became a victim of a summary execution perpetrated by military death squads during the past Arroyo regime. She sought and has been granted a political asylum by the U.S. government.
The story that this book tells is a long saga of crossing the seas. In this memoir, Marivir's own family members were in fact part of the centuries-old Philippine diaspora. From the struggling great grandfather who left a young wife and small children in the tiny island of Siquijor in central Philippines, then lost his life in the asparagus farms in Stockton, to this journalist who has become an immigrant herself, this book has so much to share.
