[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 Power of Symbols
If you truly hold a stone, you can feel the mountain it came from.
– Mark Nepo
A collection of children’s books lives in the closet of my childhood bedroom at my parent’s house. They survive behind stuffed animals, prom dresses, and doctoral regalia. Tattered and loved, these books are symbolic of more than a collection of thoughtful words and beautiful pictures. I learned about the power of symbolism in their pages.
Children’s books are the source of my love of language and my imagination.
They are where I fell in love with poetry and characters. My use of words evolved with each book. I found words for the pictures. I found words for the chapters. I started to write. I discovered other worlds. I got to travel and meet characters. They introduced me to the possible. I could sail on rivers of crystal mist into seas of dew. They made it safe to dream. They explained things like joy and peace and grief and anger.
Children’s books taught me how to tend things.
Children’s books are my first collection – the first time I cared enough to keep and care for something. I never had a bedroom without a bookshelf. Books always had a place of honor. I cared for books before I cared for pets, or my hair style, or who I ran with, or making cheerleader, or getting the lead in the musical. In a world where caring for each other, our earth, and our future can seem impossible, my favorite books taught that a better world can happen if we tend to things and I tended to them.
The lessons of children’s books are woven into the fabric of my life.
Mom and Dad took time every night for many years to read to me before I went to sleep. My friends in my reading group in elementary school were my best friends and my reading teachers and librarians were my favorite teachers. I learned about love from a rabbit. I learned about generosity from a tree. Sweet Pickles were my encyclopedia of positive behavior. I learned about growing up from characters like Margaret, Ramona, Nancy, Trixie, Ralph, and Fudge. That is the power of symbols. That is how they work. They situate our past. They frame our present. The guide our future.
https://kitt.global/march-15-the-power-of-symbols-mark-nepo-the-book-of-awakening/
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.
