[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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Moths
There’s a kind of white moth, I don’t know/ what kind, that glimmers
Mary Oliver
by mid-May/ in the forest, just/ as the pink moccasin flowers
are rising.// If you notice anything,/ It leads you to notice/ more// and more.// And anyway/ I was so full of energy./ I was always running around, looking/ at this and that.// If I stopped/ the pain// was unbearable.// If I stopped and thought, maybe/ the world/ can’t be saved,/ the pain/ was unbearable.
There are times in life when we are forced to stop. A forced stop makes feeling pain inevitable. A forced stop makes faith seem far away. A forced stop, over time, challenges the very idea of hope.
What if busy is distraction, chaos is anesthesia, and cynicism is excuse? What if to fly is to forsake, to rest is to ignore, to build is to destroy? What if paying attention yields paralysis? What if seeing leads to doubt? What if fire burns everything down? What if pain is the only path to love?
I am in favor of forced stops. I am in favor of noticing. I am in favor of rest. I want to be the person who stops more, notices more, and rests more. Stopping, noticing, and resting are part of the falling apart and coming back together. I want to be the person who is still and knows. True stillness is the path to love in the 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.
