[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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Galileo
How long till my soul gets it right/ Can any human being ever reach that kind of light/ I call on the resting soul, of Galileo/ King of night vision, King of insight
From Indigo Girls’ “Galileo“
Your soul has it right. When you pay attention. When you listen. When you breathe. As your fears explode amidst the fire of what if, not yet, why not, breaking, confusion, and remembering something else happens. That something else is the middle space between good and bad, joy and suffering, light and dark. That something else is the marriage of seeking and knowing and being.
I have heard that cracks are where the light gets in. In that way, our cracks are where we reach our highest light. Cracks allow scar tissue to form and we get stronger. Cracks allow us to see the stardust of which we are made. Cracks allow us to be transformed through the beautiful combination of grace and patience and vulnerability. Cracks are beauty, as the art of kintsungi teaches.
Getting it right rests on allowing cracks to let light in. When we get it right, and getting it right ebbs and flows like life itself, clarity and purpose and joy happen. When we get it right, life rattles and hums like a perfectly tuned car engine. When we get it right, we don’t miss the miracles, whether big or small. I would even argue, when we get it right we know it, and our light simply shines.
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.
