[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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Man With Blue Guitar
I cannot bring a world quite round,/ Although I patch it as I can.// I sing a hero’s head, large eye/ And bearded bronze, but not a man,// Although I patch him as I can/ And reach through him almost to man.// If to serenade almost to man/ Is to miss, by that, things as they are,// Say it is the serenade/ Of a man that plays a blue guitar.
From Wallace Stevens, “Man With Blue Guitar“
Philosopher Maxine Greene tells us we can all do philosophy. Doing philosophy means we see the world as it is and create a world that is not yet. The man with the blue guitar does philosophy. When we do philosophy, words like calling and vocation and life’s work describe our days. When we do philosophy, we are only bound by a world that lacks imagination. When we do philosophy, we are amazed by the shape we take when shape has been destroyed.
Doing philosophy is about bringing the world quite round. Creating. Inventing. Curing, Solving. Composing. Healing. Building. All things that can be done when we think about the not yet in which we live. Doing philosophy is about making the not yet better – more just, peaceful, healthier, more loving – than our world currently is.
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.
