[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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To Be Young Gifted and Black
Oh, but my joy of today
Is that we can all be proud to say
“To be young, gifted and black
Is where it’s at”
To Be Young Gifted and Black” performed by Nina Simone
I can not imagine what it must feel like to be a black person in the United States today. I can not imagine what it must feel like to be a parent of a black son and live under the fear of having your son killed because they wore a hoodie, or jogged down the wrong street, or had a broken tail light? Why are black men shot and killed during routine traffic stops and white men peacefully apprehended after mass shootings? Why are thousands of white insurrectionists allowed to desecrate our United States Capital, not be stopped for hours, kill police officers, and leave the scene unscathed? (What would have happened had those people been black?) Having taught writing in a federal prison, it is impossible not to see the truth that our justice system perpetuates injustice. I ask all these questions as a human being guided by the notion that our highest calling is to love one another.
This song is revolutionary. It is a celebration of black joy. It is an anthem of hope and faith. It is the light of the as if and not yet in a dark world. It is the sweet song of interdependence. It is steps marked toward a more perfect union. It is an invitation to something more beautiful than we have ever known. It is simply a call to love one another.
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.
