[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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Love as the Practice of Freedom
Without an ethic of love shaping the direction of our political vision and our radical aspirations, we are often seduced, in one way or the other, into continued allegiance to systems of domination—imperialism, sexism, racism, classism.
bell hooks in Love as the Practice of Freedom
If we pay attention, it is easy to feel like love is losing. If we pay attention, it is easy to forget that to love one another is the most powerful thing we can do. If we pay attention, our hearts break a little each day. Paying attention right now is rife with lies and distraction, isolation and fear, loss and grief, with violence and cruelty.
bell hooks offers another view of love. For hooks, love is built on interdependence and service. Her ethic of love views love as a guidepost toward justice, a moral way of being, and a radical life choice. Her view of love asks us to hold both beauty and brokenness in our hands.
I need to hear this message right now. As someone who deeply considers love, I understand the way in which love can become a wilted sentiment rather than life-changing antidote. That is the challenge we face. Rescuing love from the silence, distance, and fear.
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.
