[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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Living the Comma #36
On Purpose. Faith. Anne Lamott.
“You can tell if people are following Jesus, because they are feeding the poor, sharing their wealth, and trying to get everyone medical insurance.” ― Anne Lamott
Dear Writer Friends,
Church this week was about women who live on purpose. Living on purpose looks like feeding the poor, sharing our wealth, and trying to get everyone medical insurance. Living on purpose is Ross Gay’s call to find what we love in common. Living on purposeis paying attention, finding joy, and writing about it.
I want to define purpose in broad terms. Purpose as mindfulness and intention. Purpose as listening and seeing. Purpose as courage and perseverance. Purpose as truth and intuition. Purpose as the ease with which our paths emerge. The more I write, the clearer my purpose becomes. Purpose’s fluidity. Purpose’s multiplicity. Purpose’s interconnection. Writing works like that. It connects thought and action. Head and heart. Heart and hand.
Conversations with Authors — Anne Lamott
I was introduced to Anne Lamott in a graduate school research course. Her career spans decades and genres. She shows me what it means to write honestly and vulnerably, while also being funny. She makes it ok to write shitty first drafts. She is a person of faith living a joyful life.
She describes why she writes to the Dallas Morning News:
I try to write the books I would love to come upon, that are honest, concerned with real lives, human hearts, spiritual transformation, families, secrets, wonder, craziness—and that can make me laugh. When I am reading a book like this, I feel rich and profoundly relieved to be in the presence of someone who will share the truth with me, and throw the lights on a little, and I try to write these kinds of books. Books, for me, are medicine.
Grace (Eventually) — Thoughts on Faith
“I do not understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.”― Anne Lamott
Dance Class
Plan B — Further Thoughts on Faith
“Hope is not about proving anything. It’s about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us.”― Anne Lamott
Market Street
Bird by Bird — Some Instructions on Writing and Life
“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.” — Anne Lamott
Looking Around
A Writing Prompt
Lamott talks writing with David Perell, “Writing Advice Every Writer Should Hear.” In giving examples of exercises she leads students through, she suggests the prompt — “There was a tree…” I love this prompt. I love the many directions it can take. No direction is wrong in responding to a writing prompt. I can write about a favorite banyan tree next to where we stay in Key West. I can write about the cherry tree in the front yard of our house in Walford Manor when I was little. It was the perfect size to climb. I can write about when I learned that tree roots communicate, creating a story in which trees are personified — and protect and care for one another.
Live on purpose this week. Step into Summer’s light. As Pastor Kay encouraged, live on purpose. Create on purpose. Build on purpose. Connect on purpose. Sing on purpose. Weep on purpose. Dive on purpose. Fly on purpose. Love on purpose. Write on purpose.
From the heart of the comma,
Katie
Thank you for Living the Comma with me. This community is truly love and light. Subscribe to the Wide-Awakeness Project and share your light. It has never been more important.
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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.
