[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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Don’t Hesitate
“But I also say this: that light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness, when it’s done right, is a kind of holiness, palpable and redemptive.”
Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver’s poem “Don’t Hesitate”
I have listened to joyful songs. Michael Franti and Spearhead’s “Sound of the Sunshine.” Macklemore’s “Glorius.” Pharrell William’s “Happy.” George Winston’s arrangement of Bach’s “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring”
I have read and listened to discussions of joy. The New York Review of Books essay “Joy” by Zadie Smith. The Good Life Project conversation with Byron Katie.
I have even returned to my thoughts about the life-or-death pursuit of creative joy
What I know for sure is I am ready for joy. I am ready for joy and I am looking for it. I am ready for joy and doing more of the things that bring me joy and less of the things that don’t. I am ready to chose joy. I am ready to surround myself with joyful people. I am ready to embrace joy as easily as I embrace fear. I am ready to celebrate, honor, sing, and feel.
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.
