[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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Weekly Wide-Awake: Celebration of Mothers
A Celebration of Mothers
This week I have been grateful for mothering love that knows about cherishing, comforting, holding space, and believing in. The love that teaches joy in another’s success, faith when the world is a mess, virtue in curiosity and kindness, and bear-like loyalty. The love that knows the marrow of our bones – the very lifeblood of what it means to be human. That love is bigger than gender and biology. That is the love I celebrate.
Celebrating mothers is difficult. My own understanding of mothers and mothering love has deepened over the years. I have arrived at what I understand as my mothering truth. Somewhere nestled in my mothering truth is relentless forgiveness. Somewhere nestled in my mothering truth is a love of tradition and ritual. Somewhere nestled in my mothering truth is a respect for story as something that connects and makes compassion possible. Somewhere nestled in my mothering truth is love for other people’s children as if they are my own. My mothering truth also holds our earth in a loving embrace. When I think about mothers and mothering love that way – when I forget labels, heal a few wounds, extend a few olive branches, and drink from the fount of humility and grace – it becomes something I celebrate.
I thought about living big and crazy wisdom this week. I thought about my experience at the Women’s March this week, too. It all seems connected to my mothering truth. All of it reminds me of the need for women to lead, the power of a majority, the importance of shoulders to stand on, and love changes things for the better. That gives me hope. We all need to be reminded of all that, especially mothers. In this time of chaos and isolation, holding tight to all that might be the best thing we can do.
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.
