Art is Everything with Clay Steakley

Clay Steakley is a writer, filmmaker, musician, and theatre artist. He creates multidisciplinary works combining all of these because he got tired of choosing, and because it gives him the opportunity to play well with others.His work has been published alongside Aimee Bender’s and Lauren Groff’s in Slake, as well as in Cathexis Northwest Press, Fiction Fix, From the Depths, Waxing & Waning, and more. He was a finalist for a PEN Emerging Voices Fellowship, and received the Ruby P. Treadway award for creative writing. He was a 2020/21 OZ Arts Art and The Porch Art Wire Fellow. He has been a professional copywriter and art director for more than 20 years.

As an actor, he has worked with companies including Arena Stage, Round House Theatre, Theater J, Actors Bridge Ensemble, Theatre Dybbuk, and many other regional professional companies. His film and television work includes supporting roles in Walk the Line (20th Century Fox), The Wire (HBO), Deja Vu (Touchstone/Disney), White Lightnin’ (IFC/Vice), and Elvis (CBS miniseries). He trained with Steppenwolf West and earned his BA in theatre and English from Belmont University.

He is a multi-instrumentalist and has performed with artists including Matthew Ryan, Kate York, and Strays Don’t Sleep, and has released two albums of his own, including the music for his work The Fire Cycle.

The Fire Cycle is a multidisciplinary collection including a book of poetry, several films, instrumental music, theatre, and visual art. The films have screened at the Defy Film Festival in Nashville and the Cadence Poetry Film Festival in Seattle, and a stage work has been workshopped at OZ Arts. In June 2025, Clay and collaborators will premiere a new stage work. He has also received an artist-in-residence grant to support a film titled The Fire Cycle: Stone Sutra, for television broadcast and streaming in 2026. Learn more at www.thefirecycle.com