[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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The Crystal Gazer
I shall gather myself into myself again,
I shall take my scattered selves and make them one,
Fusing them into a polished crystal ball
Where I can see the moon and the flashing sun.I shall sit like a sibyl, hour after hour intent,
Sara Teasdale – “Crystal Gazer“
Watching the future come and the present go,
And the little shifting pictures of people rushing
In restless self-importance to and fro.
Scattered selves becoming one watching future come and present go. In that thought, Teasdale describes life’s falling apart and coming together. The way in which we stand in present, look toward future, after having gathered our past. The way in which scattered selves can embrace wholeness. The way in which we shape perception. The way in which impermanence challenges self-importance.
In this sense, a crystal ball is less about prediction and more about creation. Creating our whole self in the spirit of soft agency. Creating peace in the rushed and noisy space. Creating sight and light in blurred and dark spaces.
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.
