[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: Where To Start?
Where To Start?
I am not sure where to start my roundup this week – my first attempt at a curatorial blog posts since 2018. It seems important to start keeping track of things right now. I am not sure what week of isolation we are in. I had an incredibly awful flu at the beginning of March and I don’t think my life has been “normal” since. Seven weeks of whatever this is. I have been working on the gratitude project I started in 2016. That has mainly consisted of transcribing (with new software that I am learning that I am not convinced does a good job) and editing (with the support of an editor/friend whom I have known for years) 15 hours of the gratitude interviews I conducted in 2018 and 2019. The audio files of the interviews languished on my computer as file icons staring at my idle hands for far too long. I am learning this is the perfect time to do this work. It has felt good to reconnect with those insightful and inspirational words. It has felt good to move something positive forward when so much of my world is mired in the thick sludge. I have drafted 4 interviews and have 5 left to complete. Progress, any type of progress, seems important to note right now as the time between each sunrise and sundown runs together.
This Week
I lost my dear friend, Janice Nolan, who had lived with advanced ovarian cancer for several years. She changed the world through her work and example of friendship and grace. We all breathe more easily because of her tireless strength fighting to reduce air pollution. A daughter of Tennessee, she defined steel magnolia. Born on the 4th of July, she was independence, history, civics, and fireworks. She is deeply missed.
This week my parents moved out of the house in which I grew up. After 40 years, and many bouts with the stairs akin to ladders, they moved. They lived in Jeffersonville, Indiana and moved to Louisville, Kentucky. I live in Miami, Florida. It feels weird to think they no longer live where I grew up. They now live about twenty minutes away from our old house, closer to my brother and his family. I am truly sad I was not able to travel there and help them move. From the bottom of my heart, I wish I could have supported my family during the big transition. There is grief in not being able to participate in important things.
From this space, I submit this week’s roundup.
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.
