[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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One Word Pulled
One word pulled her toward the next, leading her out of herself
Lia Mills
I left myself as I walked through Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) by St. Stephens Green in Dublin. One word pulled me to the next. Around each corner through books and portraits, text and images, present time and history, sunlight and gardens, poems and coffee. I fell out of myself and in love with words again, again, and again.
The MoLI is a full on celebration of Irish Literature. Collage filled walls of quotes and images. James Joyce’s timeline. Piles of books and comfy chairs. Poems read on a loop in a small theatre. As we walked through I was pulled, step-by-step, inch-by-inch, word-by-word, outside of myself.
Words do that. Words and story pull, coerce, cajole, expand, lift, build, create, and breathe.
My Thoughts from the MoLI Walls
We Spoke With Different Voices
We spoke with different voices, but when she was telling me her story her words became my words. — Kate Cruise O’Brien
Different voices connect through story. Like bones, muscles, ligaments, and tendons allow our bodies to move, our stories allow us to understand the mechanics of our interdependence. We know it when our voices dance with another’s — and our voice includes our words and how we use them. When know it when another’s words become our words — and our experiences do not have to be similar. Another’s words can become our words when expansive experiences leave us changed. We know it when words fail, and something beyond language tells the story.
Your Own Language
You have to keep staying alive in your own language. — Hug Hamilton
I have worked hard to learn my own language. Our own language is not defined or constrained by syllables and words. Learning my own language has meant exploring my edge. Learning my own language has meant paying careful attention. Learning my own language has meant creating, creating, creating. Learning my own language has meant speaking my desires into existence again, again, and again. Learning my own language has meant falling apart and back together again, again, and again. Learning my own language has meant forgiving again, again, and again.
Third Person
Love could not be kept forever in the third person, past tense. — Mary Lavin
Now, just what is the third person, past tense? I looked it up and found a few examples, just to be sure my English major memory was correct — He walked to the store. She studied for the test. The dog barked loudly. Each example feels faraway, long ago, adjacent, not inside, or present, or real.
More Thoughts From MoLI Walls
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.
