[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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For Keeps
Sun makes the day new.
From Joy Harjo’s, “For Keeps“
Tiny green plants emerge from earth.
Birds are singing the sky into place.
There is nowhere else I want to be but here.
I used to say for keeps when I was young. I said it when I was truly serious about a promise. It was how my brain wrapped itself around big thoughts like truth, forever, and friendship. For keeps felt like certainty in a world where things were often topsy turvy. For keeps felt grown up in a world where I was a child. (For keeps and keeping my word feel related as steps toward the deep relationship waters in which I would swim as an adult.) For keeps meant I cared about the person I was talking to enough to keep my word.
Today, I know love is for keeps. Love is for keeps because it is big enough for it all. Love is for keeps because it is generous and joyful, and kind. Love is for keeps because it holds and abides and grows. Love is for keeps because it spans moments and lifetimes, and generations. Love is for keeps because we feel it deep in our bones.
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.
