[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 White Album
“A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.”
Joan Didion, White Album
I claim hard, remember obsessively, wrench, shape, render, and love. I have lived all over the United States. I have made each place my own, in my way. What does it mean to make a place your own? I have found pockets of cool where I work, write, eat, and live. I have started, built, maintained, ended, and grieved relationships. I have both succeeded and failed, greatly. I have explored and expanded my circle of influence — the things about which I care deeply and can effect.
Have I remade things in my own image? I am not sure. I am not even sure I know what it means to remake things. Is it about romantic memories that skew my remembrance toward the perfect? Is it about moments when a blank screen protects me from the pain of life’s movie in my mind? Is it something deeper that makes leaving hard and returning meaningful? What I know for sure is I have left a piece of my heart in each place.
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.
