[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: The Hill We Climb
When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.
Amanda Gorman — Video of The Hill We Climb. Text of The Hill We Climb.
Night had fallen on the Capital. The stars aligned in song. John Legend sang Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good.” Fireworks celebrated the new administration. I could truly breathe for the first time in a long while. After holding my breath for weeks, if not years, and sobbing pretty much all day, I fell asleep. The violence inside the Capital, during which people died and our very Democracy was in peril, had left me raw. My tears were a welcome catharsis. My day had started with a run listening to the amazing Biden-Harris Inauguration playlist. I was feeling Jill Scott golden. Now I could not only sleep, but rest.
I had been thinking about this day since January 20, 2017. The Women’s March in Washington provided some immediate relief and release. I taught writing in a Federal prison. (I wrote about it for Elephant Journal.) I also wrote grants to stay connected to my community as an antidote to anger and isolation over the years. Anything to be a part of creating a better world for our children and our children’s children.
Election week November 2020, I gathered texts of past presidential inaugural poems to conjure the hope and aspirations of past inaugurals. (Little did I know at the time that Amanda Gorman would steal my heart while reading The Hill We Climb at this one.) I listened to a conversation between Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris. I even found and read Shirley Chisholm’s speech at Howard University — April 21, 1969 because she was no small part of the powerful love that lead to that historic day. We all stand on her shoulders.
We have a new President. As Gordon suggests, we have hills to climb. Democracy must be a verb. During this week when we remember the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it must look like the beloved community. It must look like climbing the hills of public health, racial justice, and environmental protection. It must look like the truth telling of the 1619 Project. It must look like singing together envisioned by Langston Hughes and Woody Guthrie. Seeing the President and Vice President standing before the lights of the Lincoln Memorial honoring the more than 400,000 people lost to Covid-19 to date, the hills are in full view. We must climb them together.
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.
