[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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Weekly Wide-Awake #62
Invincible Summer. On Purpose. The Ohio River. Ferial Pearson.
“O light! This is the cry of all the characters of ancient drama brought face to face with their fate. This last resort was ours, too, and I knew it now. In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.” — Albert Camus
This week, Summer settled in my bones. I am unsure why I felt summer this week or if it will continue as bright green trees eventually turn toward Autumn. Today, I am thinking of summer. Today, I am thinking about where I find my juice, jazz, and jump. How do I find my rhythm, flow, and center? When do I charge, build, and create? Summer is about finding all that. Somewhere in between vulnerability, integrity, audacity, strength, and knowing, I stop, reflect, and recharge again and again, as much as I can, for as long as I can.
What is the relationship between invincibility and rest? How do they live in the same body and brain? How do they not live in the same body and brain? Katherine May writes about the value of what she calls “wintering” — slowing down, reflecting, chewing, digesting, and healing — and suggests wintering can occur at any time.
Wintering is critical to uncovering our invincible summer. Stay with me. We each know invincible summer — the space inside filled with deep love for ourselves, others, and our world. Rest is the heart of invincible summer. That is where we are. It is summer, and we need to accept the invitation to rest.
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.
MONDAYS ARE FREE EXERCISES 246-250
Wolves. Guardian Angels. Records. Collaboration. Hands.
EXERCISE 246: WRITE FOR AN OCCASION LIKE LIMÓN & FINNEY
our communities call on us
Nikky Finney’s Love Child’s Hot Bed of Occasional Poetry (2020) and the new poems in Ada Limón’s Startlement (2025) both center the moments that our communities call on us as poets. Look to your local news for an event in need of commemoration—a mural unveiling, the fiftieth anniversary of that one mom & pop shop, the rare migration cycle of an insect, a vigil. Imagine you’ve been invited to stand before an audience to read a poem marking the occasion.
I am going to call into being a moment when the Red Wolf is no longer an endangered species. The event will occur at Canis Rufus, a sculpture honoring the Red Wolf.
Feeding the Good Wolf
The wolf we feed survives. The grandfather said.// We are given choices./ A choice to notice./ A choice to protect./ A choice to steward./ A choice to conserve./ A choice to defend.// The wolf we feed survives. The grandfather said.// Feed awe./ Feed health./ Feed beauty./ Feed the future./ Feed the pack.// The wolf we feed survives. The grandfather said.// Call on connection./ Call on compassion./ Call on courage./ Call on community.// The wolf we feed survives. The grandfather said.// Bricks and ties. Cement and wildflowers. Story and survival. Attention and art. Care and empathy.// The wolf we feed survives. The grandfather said.// Interdependence. Oneness. Safety. Story. Strength.
WANTED Week Three
The Ohio River
I am always seeking home. I was born and raised on the Ohio River at Louisville, Kentucky. Speed boats and rope swings and King Fish. Generations and Derbies and Cardinals. Calliopes and Barges and Fossil Beds. Ohio River Valley allergies never bothered me. I drove along the River to my high school. I know upriver and downriver in my bones.
Feeding the Good Wolf
A Gratitude Conversation with Ferial Pearson
A friend on the faculty a the University of Nebraska at Omaha, who I had talked with, suggested I speak with Dr. Ferial Pearson. Dr. Pearson, also UNO faculty, had written a book about the program she created, the Secret Kindness Agents. More information about the Secret Kindness Agents can be found at TEDxOmaha and Hallmark Channel. Read more about Dr. Pearson here. Our conversation gets to the heart of Secret Kindness Agents, her life and work, and her example of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Though this conversation took place many years ago, Dr. Pearson continues to make this world a kinder and more just place.
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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.
