[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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Praise the Rain
Praise crazy. Praise sad.
Praise the path on which we’re led.
Praise the roads on earth and water.
Praise the eater and the eaten.
Praise beginnings; praise the end.
Praise the song and praise the singer.Praise the rain; it brings more rain.
From Joy Harjo’s “Praise the Rain“
Praise the rain; it brings more rain.
Touch it all. Taste it all. See it all. Feel it all. Praise it all. On the journey to being whole, praise it all. Lift every voice. Rise up and sing. Pass it on. Let it shine. Light a fire. Hosanna. Hallelujah. It comes from the same place.
The older I get, the more convinced I am that praising it all is the key to paying attention and paying attention is the key to joy. This is what I mean. When we pay attention, the fullness of life emerges. All of it. The ugly. The beautiful. The in-between. The outlier. The tragic. The crucial. The inconsequential. The sublime. The awful. The vital. The excessive. The wonderful. The epic. The quiet. The horrendous. The amazing. The everything. The nothing. The falling apart and coming together — we all know in our own way — is made of it all. Ultimately, joy happens when we praise.
Praise the rain because we can. It is a gift to praise. It is a gift to heal. It is a gift to learn. It is a gift to have an open heart and mind. It is a gift to have an unclenched hand. Praising the rain feels soft in a world of hard edges. Praising the rain tastes like sweetness. Knowing sweetness is truly all there is. Praising the rain means laying burdens down and trusting they will be washed away.
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.
