Life
At the age of three, Stepanek started to write poetry to cope with the death of his older brother. His first five books are: Heartsongs, Journey Through Heartsongs, Hope Through Heartsongs, Celebrate Through Heartsongs and Loving Through Heartsongs. All five works made the New York Times bestsellers list. He wrote that a "'Heartsong' is a person's special gift to be shared with others... or a person's 'reason for being.'" Two additional books were published posthumously; both also were New York Times bestsellers. One is Reflections of a Peacemaker (Mattie Stepanek's final collection of poetry), and the other is Just Peace: A Message of Hope (a collection of Mattie's peace essays and e-mail correspondence with Former President Jimmy Carter). In 2007, Just Peace was awarded the IPPY Gold Medal for Peacemaker Book of the Year. Template:Http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1156.
In 2002, Stepanek began a three-term appointment as the Muscular Dystrophy Association National Goodwill Ambassador, due to his national high profile because of his poetry and related appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live, and Good Morning America. In 2003, Billy Gilman - singer and friend of Mattie's - released an album called Music Through Heartsongs: Songs Based on the Poems of Mattie J.T. Stepanek. The album reached number 15 on the U.S. Top Country chart and number 109 on the US Billboard 200. Stepanek can be heard reciting his poetry on several tracks.
Read more about this topic: Mattie Stepanek
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“We have got to know what both life and death are, before we can begin to live after our own fashion. Let us be learning our a-b- c’s as soon as possible.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“‘Tis of the essence of life here,
Though we choose greatly, still to lack
The lasting memory at all clear,
That life has for us on the wrack
Nothing but what we somehow chose;
Thus are we wholly stripped of pride
In the pain that has but one close,
Bearing it crushed and mystified.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“How many women ... waste life away the prey of discontent, who might have practised as physicians, regulated a farm, managed a shop, and stood erect, supported by their own industry, instead of hanging their heads surcharged with the dew of sensibility, that consumes the beauty to which it at first gave lustre ...”
—Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)