[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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Autumn Leaves
The dead piled up, thick, fragrant, on the fire escape. My mother ordered me again, and again, to sweep it clean. All that blooms must fall. I learned this not from the Dao, but from high school biology.
From “Autumn Leaves” by Marilyn Chin
All that blooms must fall. All that blooms must fall. All that blooms must fall. We are asked to bloom by the voice that knows calling, passion, and desire. We must bloom and shine and thrive. Blooming means we listen to our happiness — to what our soul knows for sure — and act from that space. (Listening to our soul requires patience and practice. That is simple the truth.) As we bloom, we pay attention. As we fall, we pay attention. As we bloom, we breathe. As we fall, we breathe. As we bloom, we love. As we fall, we love. That is how is goes. Autumn leaves are both the bloom and the fall. That is philosophical and biological. That is that is spiritual and scientific.
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.
