[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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Weekly Wide-Awake: She Is Allowed Beauty
“L’Siren,” says the Frenchwoman, sliding a faux/ ivory bangle engraved with a mermaid on my wrist./ I run a thumb across fin and scale until I come to her/ face: full lips, round nose, hair dreadlocked. I recognize/ her face, balance her many names on my tongue: Mami/ Wata, Yemaja, River Mama, Oshun, L’Siren. Full breasted,/ black and ivory, a mermaid in metamorphosis. She is not/ caricature like colonial depictions of blackness pulled down/ from attics and brought to this market: red lipped, bugged/ eyed, coal black. She is allowed beauty.
Amy Alvarez, Amphibious
“She is allowed beauty.” That line haunts. What does it mean to be allowed beauty? Are we not all allowed beauty? Even as I ask that question, I know the answer. No. We are not. Some, in particular, are not allowed beauty at all.
How do we allow everyone Beauty? How can Beauty open its arms wide enough to hold us all? Why is that such a strange idea? Fear? Ignorance? Cruelty? What I know for sure is that there is enough Beauty to go around. We don’t have to compete for Beauty. We just have to open our eyes.
We allow Beauty when we pay attention. We allow Beauty when experience awe. We allow Beauty when we feel joy. We allow Beauty when we become magic enough to believe in mermaids and metamorphosis. A world that allows Beauty does not rest until everyone is allowed Beauty.
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.
