[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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Song Out Here
if i could sing
you would hear me and i would tell you
it’s gonna be alright
it’s gonna be alright
it’s gonna be alright it would be something like that
From Juan Felipe Herrera’s “Song Out Here“
Today I claim it’s gonna be alright as a mantra. There is joy in singing it’s gonna be alright. There is joy in knowing it’s gonna be alright. Ultimately, the it’s gonna be alright mantra must come from inside. From the place that knows impermanence and grace. From the place that knows strength and goodness. From the place that says, “I love you.”
It’s gonna be alright does not ask to to ignore life’s pain and suffering. It is not the only answer in world full of doubt and uncertainty and fear. It affirms deep hope and knowing and communion. It is the scar tissue that forms as we heal. It holds us in stillness and comfort and love.
The song out here is a symphony in which everything and everyone has a part. The song out here is a prayer for and within and among us all. The song out here is the promise of kitsungi. (Kitsungi is the Japanese practice of using gold to mend broken pottery. The gold veins in the restored pottery tell a story of the beauty of repair.) The song out here is the conversation between the why and the how, and the now and the not yet.
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.
