[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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The Reset
This was it. The reset she had been waiting for. But it didn’t happen as she had anticipated. It wasn’t luck or fate or a gift from the gods. It wasn’t circumstantial. It wasn’t handed down. It was earned. A thousand moments of self love that together formed the mountain she now stood upon, as she looked down upon the valley of opportunity she was finally ready to claim.
Melody Godfred, Self Love Poetry: For Thinkers & Feelers
The path to a reset — to claiming opportunity — is not easy. Radical self care is not a simple prescription that you simply fill. There is no universal recipe. There is no secret sauce. There are not 5 simple steps to claiming opportunity.
What I know for sure is that resets often happen when it’s easier to blossom than wither on the vine, when our shoes simply no longer fit, when the headlights are out and we are driving in a January snow storm in Montana, when we are fed up and won’t take it anymore.
I am not sure exactly how to stand on the mountaintop ready to claim opportunity. Maybe it has something to do with a well established routine of next right things. Maybe it has something to do with surrounding yourself with opportunity claimers that let you know the opportunity claiming waters are just fine. Maybe it has to do with paying attention — deep, real, grateful attention — so claiming opportunity is as easy as breath.
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.
