[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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Ways to Disappear
In the dark
From Camille Rankine’s “Ways to Disappear“
Down a stairwell
Through the doorway
Gone west
With a new wish
In daylight
I have tried it all. To disappear. The whisper and the scream. The next door and the other side of the world. The obvious and the obtuse. The dramatic and the understated. The drastic and minimal. The kind and the cruel. The stingy and the generous. I will admit it.
There are gifts to disappearing. Disappearing can comfort. Disappearing can relieve. Disappearing can distract. Disappearing can avoid. Disappearing can soothe. We can disappear into dreams, relationships, habits. Disappearing can feel like shelter during a storm, water in a desert, or a blanket on a cold night. All part of life’s ebb and flow. The falling apart and coming back together.
I want to suggest there are also gifts to appearing — to showing up. Ultimately, showing up is the long term, deep down, authentic, wound healing answer. Showing up makes room for miracles. Stay with me. When we are present, honest, and vulnerable — all those things that can scare us into disappearing — we stand hearts and hands wide open for big things. In choosing to show up, we choose gratitude and abundance. In choosing to show up, we create and build. In choosing to show up, we choose health and happiness.
About Katie
From 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.
