[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: How to Begin
“At the end as at the start, and through all the in-betweens, I love you.”
Amal El-Mohtar
This week I am thinking about beginnings — the beginning of a new school year, the beginning of a new job, the beginning of a new season, the beginning of a training calendar for a marathon set to happen at the beginning of the New Year. Even my approaching wedding anniversary and birthday feel like beginnings to me. The list of beginnings makes my eyes tear up and my palms sweat. Excited by both the past and future. Joyful to be in the game. Breathing into it all. I spend about a split second on what ifs and what might have beens and then I begin again. All of it. New Days. New Jobs. New Seasons. New Races.
The last few years I have written about the Hindu god Ganesha around the beginning of fall. Ganesha is celebrated by millions as the guardian of beginnings and remover of obstacles during the Festival of Ganesha every year on the harvest moon. Celebrating right now feels right to me in the way that fall colors bounce brilliant light, the harvest moon sheds new light in darkness, and holidays means we gather and feast and give thanks. There just seems to be a clearing of the way happening. Life’s coming together and falling apart finds poetry right now. Leaves begin to fall and we are reminded of life’s ebb and flow. Days lengthen and we are reminded of the need to rest amidst it all. Through all the in-betweens, the beginnings and obstacles, love is right here. Right now.
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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.
Reading your words makes me excited at the prospect of new beginnings! Bringing love along, into today, tomorrow, always …