WANTED WEEK 5

[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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WANTED WEEK 5

Reasons for Voyaging

The sculpture in the front of the Christchurch Art Gallery is called Reasons for Voyaging. I possess a traveler’s heart. I am the stone with no moss. I am the star bouncing across the sky. I am the shipwreck in which coral thrives. I have always had my reasons for voyaging.

It all started with an invitation to New Zealand from a handsome Kiwi sheep herder after a conversation at LAX. Treks and whales and Sauvignon Blanc and young travelers on holiday. Hostels and sailing and lamb and jet boats. Fjords and Maori dance and the Southern Cross and glaciers.

The helicopter landed on Fox Glacier’s ice. I wanted my Christmas card picture that year to be of my arms raised and eyes to heaven in victory and awe. In grace and beauty. In perfect time and joy. In breath and pause. In song and prayer. In “Hell, Yes!” In I am and as if and not yet. The bluest blue and solid flow. The crunch and glare. The thin air and close sky. The arrival and destination. The dream and experience. The ascension and the stretch. If I stepped out of my body I would break into a million pieces.

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