[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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Words
When you said people did you mean punish?
John Keene Words
When you said friend did you mean fraud?
When you said thought did you mean terror?
When you said connection did you mean con?
Words matter. What we say matters. How we say what we say matters. When we say what we say matters. How we say what we say when we say it matters. I work with words. Sometimes my words are intentional and clear and direct. Sometimes my words connect and inform and inspire. I practice words like a sculptor uses a chisel, or like a sailor uses a mast.
I hear a lot about the need to find a voice. I wonder how a voice is lost or found. I wonder about the connection between our voice and our words. Is there some kind of mystical connection between thought and action? I wonder how syllables move us inch by inch toward kindness or truth or vulnerability. I wonder what it means to find the right words. I wonder what it means for words to fail.
I keep working with words. Searching for the moment when words make it all make sense. Searching for the moment when words heal and soothe. Searching for the moment when words guide the as if, the why, and the not yet.
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.
