[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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After the Winter Rain
After the wintry pain,
From “After the Winter Rain” by Ina Donna Coolbrith
And the long, long sorrow,
Sing, heart!—for thee again
Joy comes with the morrow.
I am thinking about “Wintering.” As author Katherine May describes, wintering is, “the active acceptance of sadness.” She also offers that wintering is time to search for “liminal spaces to inhabit.” Wintering is a time to turn inward, feel, reflect, grieve, cry, and soften.
In this way, after the winter rain we can embrace joy. That is the promise of spring. I write a lot about knowing our song and singing. I believe wintering brings us closer to our songs. I write a lot about gratefulness and expressing gratitude. I believe wintering brings us closer to authentic, heart-exploding gratitude. I write a lot about wide-awakeness. I believe wintering brings us closer to imagination and empathy, the pillars of wide-awakeness.
As we step out of our collective wintering. Find solace after winter rain. As we move through grief, and sadness, and loss toward spring. As we find something even better than we have known. Remember Joy comes with the morrow.
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.
