The Judgment Tale

[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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Over the growing shadows fell the dead weight of light.
Valzhyna Mort, The Judgment Tale

Light’s dead weight. Is that simply the weight of sight? Is that the weight of truth, transparency, shine, knowing, stillness? Is there a difference between dead weight and live weight? Is live weight the weight of growth, change, shedding, stretching, bending, burning?

I like thinking about the relationship between the cracks and light breaking through. I like thinking about the relationship between our light and our shadow as part of a story that connects us all. I like thinking about letting our light shine. I like thinking about the infinite light that lives in and beyond each of us.

I like people connected to the light in themselves. I like people who gift that light to the world every day. They seem to understand the balance between giving and receiving light. I like people who look for the light in others. I like people who let others know they are beautiful and seen and precious.

Light’s weight can support and guide. Light’s weight can reveal and teach. Light’s weight can redeem and sustain.