[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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Taking A Walk #26
Taking A Walk With Cheryl Strayed
Tiny Beautiful Things
Dear Sugar,
I read your column religiously. I’m twenty-two. From what I can tell by your writing, you’re in your early forties. My question is short and sweet: What would you tell your twentysomething self if you cold talk to her now?
Love,
Seeking Wisdom
The final letter in Cheryl Strayed’s tiny, beautiful, things: advice on love and life from Dear Sugar, the letter for which the book is named, asks Strayed to give advice to her twenty something self. Strayed’s response is, of course, poetic, authentic, and wise.
That letter got me thinking. I turn 54 on October 1st. Here are a few thoughts I would like to share with my twentysomething self.
Write Like A MF
“if your Nerve, deny you-
go above your Nerve.” — Emily Dickinson
I am continuing to read tiny beautiful things: Advice on love and life from Dear Sugar, by Cheryl Strayed. In her letter, Elissa Bassist – a 28 year old writer who battles the demons of insecurity and sadness and anxiety – asks Sugar about how to get beyond pain to be able to live and write. Elissa feels washed up, awful, and depressed.
Walking Through the Wilderness
“A luxurious chat from the beginning til the end, this is a wonderful chance to get to know Cheryl a little better and hear the voice behind the books. It’s a true comfort, which folds in everything from the power of walking and what it can do to you, the unfinished walk, the male narrative and damage on all sides, finding the ‘off’ button for our brains and whether such a thing is achievable, brainfog, her ‘Dear Sugar’ advice columns and discovering the human ‘standard set of problems’, and not being scared by the wilderness in which she grew. Lovely, and nourishing too.”— Katherine May
Walking Through The Wilderness a conversation with Cheryl Strayed
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Taking A Walk #25
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.
