[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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Letter From My Heart to My Brain/ Letter From My Brain to My Heart
Its okay to hang upside-down like a bat,/ to swim into the deep end of silence,/ to swallow every key so you can’t get out.
Rachel McKibbons
I am not sure where I learned the few coping skills I have. Hanging upside-down. Silence. Swallowing it all. Locking myself in. I think I have tried it all at one time or another to avoid, deflect, ignore, escape, survive. Maybe its habit. Maybe its comfort.
I am not sure, but if I were writing a letter between my brain and heart I think it would say a few things. 1. Celebrate every victory. 2. Mourn every loss. 3. Be still and know. 4. Stay connected to your breath. Always. 5. (Borrowing from Goethe) Do not hurry. Do not rest.
I am not saying I successfully do these things even 50 percent of the time. Rather, I am saying aspiration is beautiful, and whenever I stop hanging upside down long enough to remember them they make sense. In truth, today I probably stay connected to these aspirations more than I am disconnected from them. I am able to find them more quickly when I have lost my way. I carry little “letters” with me to bring me back to center. It all helps.
I know for sure universe works like that.
There are letters to our head and hearts — things that remind us of who we are way down deep. How we hold those letters. How we use those letters to traverse our path. How we share those letters with others on our path beside us. Matters.
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.
