[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!
Melanie Faith
Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.
Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.
The Society of Professional Journalists
In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.
I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.
Maxine Greene
Philosopher and Education Scholar
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Both Wings Broken
Love draws a dagger and pulls me close./ Lock and key. Bird with both wings// broken. The love religion is all that’s/ written here. Who else would say this?// You open me wide open. Or you tie me/ tighter. The ball waits on the field// to be hit again. You push me into fire/ like Abraham. You pull me out like// Muhammad. “Which do you like better?”/ you ask All the same, if it’s your hand,// troubles or peace. Friends become enemies,/ faithful faithless. Some knots tighten;// some loosen. Unruly tangle of caution and/ rebellion, ropes and uncombed hair, no one// can tell. Then comes the sure attention/ of a mother’s hand for her hurt child.
Rumi
“The love religion is all that’s written here.” The religion of broken wings and pull and push, of being split wide open and tied in knots, of troubles and peace, of caution and rebellion, of ropes and uncombed hair. The dagger of lies pierces our truth at its very depths. That is where we are. Love is both lock and key. Love pulls us from the very fire it sends us into. Love mends the wings it breaks. Love makes friends of enemies. Love turns troubles into peace. We are all mothers looking to care for our children.
About Katie
Born in Louisville. Live in Atlanta. Curious by nature. Researcher by education. Writer by practice. Grateful heart by desire.
Buy the Book!
The Stage Is On Fire, a memoir about hope and change, reasons for voyaging, and dreams burning down can be purchased on Amazon.
