[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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Small Basket of Happiness
All whom we loved.
From Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Small Basket of Happiness“
In the quiet air lived
the happiness they had given.
And would still give, if only.
You would slow down a minute.
You would bend.
An unexpected gift of moving is boxes. Yes, that’s right. Moving boxes are a gift. Stay with me. Having moved a lot in my life, I am no stranger to boxes. Our most recent move included, by the mover’s number, 110 boxes. In packing and sorting through those boxes, I relived memories. People and places that had touched my heart. Things I had done that had been captured as moments in time never to be forgotten. The edges of my lifetime became softer as I worked me way through each box. (I had committed to myself to open each box during this move. In looking at the evidence of moving company stickers, there were some boxes that had not been opened through 4 moves over 25 years.)
Perhaps boxes were baskets of happiness. Baskets of happiness that allowed me to slow down and breathe and connect, even if just for a chaotic second, amidst change. I am grateful that moving gave me the opportunity to visit people and places in my mind and heart. There are even a few new things on my walls in celebration.
Keeping boxes might not align with the rush to simplify and clear out and cleanse, but that’s alright with me. As someone who needs both change and home. As someone who seeks to surround herself in story and remember. As someone who believes our boxes just might be our small baskets of happiness. I will keep tending my boxes.
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.
