[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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The Summer Day
Who made the world?/ Who made the swan, and the black bear?/ Who made the grasshopper?/ This grasshopper, I mean—/ the one who has flung herself out of the grass,/ the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,/ who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-/ who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes./ Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face./ Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away./ I don’t know exactly what a prayer is./ I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down/ into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,/ how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,/ which is what I have been doing all day./ Tell me, what else should I have done/ Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?/ Tell me, what is it you plan to do/ with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver
12 Things I Plan To Do With My One Wild Precious Life (Not necessarily in order of importance. That would be too difficult.)
- Share.
- Finish a half marathon in 3 hours.
- Travel.
- Make meals for others.
- Practice yoga.
- Learn kintsugi.
- Frame grandmothers’ lace doilies.
- Connect with friends.
- Send real birthday cards.
- Publish gratitude book.
- Listen more.
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.
