[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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Weekly Wide-Awake: Grateful For It All
“Everything is gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is a measure of our gratefulness, and gratefulness is a measure of our aliveness.”
Brother David Steindal-Rast
This week, in the midst of beginnings and celebrations, I am grateful for it all. Grateful means paying attention to the gift of anniversaries and birthdays, miracles like cats laying in the sun, mouth watering meals, yoga every day, and cool morning walks. Grateful means taking that split second to appreciate the falling apart and coming together and magic and quiet and questions. Grateful means appreciating the changing of the seasons and the city that grows and flows around me. Grateful means gently holding yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Grateful means seeking joy as a radical act of wholeness and true wisdom.
This Weekly Wide-Awake includes several of the pieces I have written on the topic of gratitude. It exemplifies my journey toward living a more grateful life. I have learned several things about gratitude along the way. I know gratitude multiplies like waves in the ocean. I know gratitude creates like meals shared in celebration. I know gratitude softens like hearts melt when met with story and understanding. I know gratitude simplifies like kindness defuses conflict. I know gratitude expands like desires and dreams. I know gratitude tells the truth like honor and vulnerability. I know gratitude remembers like memories and rituals. Because of all this, I am grateful for it all.
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.
