[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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This Is Not a Small Voice
This is not a small love
you hear this is a large
love, a passion for kissing learning
on its face. …This is a love initialed Black Genius.
This is not a small voice
you hear.
From, “This Is Not A Small Voice” by Sonia Sanchez
I have been thinking about Black Genius. I have been thinking about what the world loses every time another young black person dies. I have been thinking about what the world loses when the right to vote is stolen. I have been thinking about what the world loses when a select few get to name what is a protest and what is a riot.
What does all that loss mean? All that loss feels like small love.
Black Genius is not small love. Our love should not be small. Ever. Small love lets Black mothers mourn without compassion. Small love does not value Black people. Small love builds walls and prisons. Small love believes we don’t breathe the same air and drink the same water and want the same things for our children. Small love separates. That’s small love.
I want to lift up Black Genius. I want to kiss learning on it’s face. I want to nourish children. I want love colored with iron and lace. I want love that says, in a big voice, until all are loved, no one is loved.
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.
