[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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Let Me Begin Again
Dear Glacier, Dear Sea
From “Let Me Begin Again” by Major Jackson
of Stars, Dear Leopards disintegrating
at the outer limits of our greed; soon we will
encounter you only in motivational tweets.
Reader, I should have married you sooner.
This time, let me not sleep like the prophet who
believes he’s seen infinity. Let me run
at break-neck speeds toward sceneries
of doubt. I have no more dress rehearsals
to attend. Look closer: I am licking my lips.
I am thinking about Glennon Doyle’s cheetah refrain in Untamed. Doyle asks us to live into our cheetah selves. Our cheetah selves question what we see, run toward fear and doubt, live out loud, do hard things, and lick our lips every sweet and savory moment of life. Our cheetah selves are in life’s arena confronting violence and injustice, building and creating a better world, and loving fully and completely.
What does it mean to begin again?
I have moved a lot in my life. Moving feels like beginning again. Beginning again has happened again and again and again, for me. Beginning again can look like turning away from truth, center, and home. Beginning again — perhaps the beginning again of which Jackson speaks — can also look like turning to truth, center, and home. I am reminded of the fight for survival and against extinction. I am reminded of sacred uncertainty and the invitation of an empty bowl and beginner’s mind. I am reminded of interconnection and ubuntu. I am reminded of the rings of trees and the phases of the moon. May we marry those who strengthen our world.
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.
