[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!
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.
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.
Katie Steedly Curling was born in Louisville, Kentucky. Perpetually interested in the arts growing up, she sang in choirs, took dance and fiddle lessons, and performed in Equity dinner theatre productions. She was diagnosed with Turner syndrome at the age of 15. She served in AmeriCorps right out of college after which she taught high school theatre. The arts classroom propelled her to graduate school where she studied powerful encounters with the arts within the high school theatre context. After completing her Ph.D., she began a career in applied research/program evaluation. She is currently a writer living in Atlanta. Her work has been published by Washingtonian Magazine, Elephant Journal, The Center for Grateful Living, Medium, Thrive Global, and various academic journals. She has trekked the Abel Tasman, bathed in Tirta Empul, independently published a memoir, volunteered in Presidential campaigns, and finished a marathon as a seeker of the as if, the why, the not yet.
