[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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Taurus Sun, Cancer Moon, Scorpio Rising
You’re too afraid of who you are to know who you can be. You’re too afraid of being happy. You’re too happy being afraid. You’re afraid you’re happy. You’re afraid, the way a broken bowl gilded and glued back together with gold is still broken, that knowing makes no difference. You’re broken, still, but you’re happy. You’re afraid, too, but still, you’re happy. You’re who you can be, already, whether or not you know. You’re different, already. You don’t need to know to know. You’re ready.
Paul Tran
I have been fascinated by the Japanese art of kintsugi for a while. In kintsugi, pottery is repaired with lacquer mixed with dust of gold, silver, or platinum. Repair becomes part of the history of an object. Philosophically speaking, we are broken and our very brokenness — our history — is the source of our wholeness and beauty. Breaking and repairing become life’s flow. Breaking is beautiful. Repair is beautiful.
I don’t understand the signs of the zodiac, but I have seen my share of fortune tellers and tarot card readers over the years. I suppose I have done that because I seek to know and I don’t quite believe that already know. I suppose enough of me is not happy about being afraid that I have sought outer relief for inner turmoil. I suppose my broken bowl-of-a-life does not quite feel whole and beautiful, so I patch together pieces and wait. I suppose the books that I have written on my heart stay there because I don’t quite believe I am ready to write them.
Today I read I’m ready.
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.
