[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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Morning Poem
Every morning/ the world/ is created./ Under the orange// sticks of the sun/ the heaped/ ashes of the night/ turn into leaves again// and fasten themselves to the high branches — / and the ponds appear/ like black cloth/ on which are painted islands// of summer lilies./ If it is your nature
Mary Oliver
to be happy/ you will swim away along the soft trails// for hours, your/ imagination/ alighting everywhere./ And if your spirit/ carries within it// the thorn/ that is heavier than lead — / if it’s all you can do/ to keep on trudging — // there is still/ somewhere deep within you/ a beast shouting that the earth/ is exactly what it wanted — // each pond with its blazing lilies/ is a prayer heard and answered/ lavishly,/ every morning,// whether or not/ you have ever dared to be happy,/ whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.
Hope is universal in the morning. Strength is unbreakable in the morning. Past is past in the morning. Light is light in the morning. Forgiveness and compassion even seem easier in the morning. Lily ponds are answered prayers and beasts shout that the earth is exactly what it wanted in the morning. You don’t even have to dare to be happy or to pray. Every morning a world is created.
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.
