[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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Love for a Song
Nature asks only that we notice—a sunrise
From J. Drew Lanham’s “Love for a Song“
here—a sunset there. The surge, that overwhelming inex-
plicable thing in a swallow’s joyous flight or the dawning of
new light that melds heart and head into sensual soul in that
moment of truly seeing—that is love.
Love is noticing nature. A swallow’s song. The moon’s glow. A rose’s scent. That makes sense to me in the way we pay attention to what we love. That makes sense to me in the way nature is big like love itself. That makes sense to me in the way nature, and love, always move in perfect time — patient, rhythmic, and harmonic.
Nature as unconditional love. Herds, packs, and flocks simply form. Flowers simply bloom. The sun simply rises and sets. The ocean tides rise and fall. That makes sense to me, too. The hope of a seed. The courage of a caterpillar. The strength of a tree. The power of a cheetah. That all feels unconditional, and fierce.
This all seems so obvious. Obvious does not mean easy. I hear about “being in your power.” The choice to be in my power is related to noticing nature. Let me explain. I draw strength from nature, in both its constancy and its fluidity. I find peace in nature, in both its music and its silence. I make sense in nature, in both its time and its order. Noticing is powerful. Love is powerful.
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.
