[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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Dirtbag
There are so many different people to hate, so I keep things simple and hate everyone.
Leigh Lucas, Dirtbag
Hating everyone is so simple. As long as you hate everyone you don’t have to find a particular reason for any of it. Hating everyone throws the need to be healthy and rational and loving out the window. Hating everyone is void of the messiness of responsibility, shame, regret, and truth. Hating everyone lives in the clouds above right and wrong, black and white, and peace and war.
Hating everyone is sometimes called for. Like when someone we love dies and we navigate a canyon of grief. Like when a dream shifts and changes and we are overcome in a deluge of anger. Like when our heart is broken and a burn it all down reflex takes over every neuron of our brain. Like when global crises lead to existential dread.
How do we rise above hating everyone? We can hope there are enough candles and bathtubs and breathing exercises to see us through the hate wave. We can imagine and create and build things. (I find my creative impulse is an antidote for so much, including hate.) We can get out doors. (There are answers outside. I swear.) We can phone that friend who always knows that right thing to say. We can maybe search for humor in situations. (I don’t think laughing leaves much room for hate.)
Hating everyone does not work. Hate does not require us to use our words and solve problems. Healing does not happen when we hate. It feels awful to hate. We are all asked to leave the world a little better than we found it, and hate has never and will never do that.
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.
