Potato Salad to Personal Essays and Who Does Fine Dining Best
...while some of our neighbors fear going to a grocery store.
Welcome to the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Flipside edition, published on Wednesday mornings. In this edition we have 20 columns by our members who have written about food, travel, books, music, sports, and strictly personal essays.
Food & Dining
Wini Moranville
We know Ruth's Chris, 801 Chophouse and Fleming's can do steaks. But how's the fish? Wini Moranville digs deep to find what to order—and what to skip.
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Connie Taylor
My mom makes the best potato salad. No—MY mom makes the best potato salad. Doesn’t everyone’s mom? Connie shares her favorite version—her mom’s—here.
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Entertainment & Travel
Julie Gammack
This bestselling fiction writer had a teacher pull her aside and tell her she'd never be a writer, so she should think of a more practical career.
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Alison McGaughey
How many pop culture jokes can you squeeze into one weekend in Winterset?
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Spiritual
Debra Engle
Sometimes doing whatever it takes makes life a whole lot easier.
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Sports
John Naughton
John Naughton took a nostalgic trip to his favorite childhood sport Sunday when he visited the Baseball Hall of Fame induction in Cooperstown, New York.
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Phoebe Wall Howard
Sailors explain their passion for long-distance racing: "The constant possibility of moments characterized by sheer panic, some crisis, rainstorms, breaking stuff adds to a feeling of accomplishment."
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Weather and Environment
Robert Leonard
Nearly every day Bob Leonard and Violet the Dog contemplate the wonders of Cedar Bluffs Natural Area in rural Mahaska County. As volunteer park stewards, they share their observations at Cedar Creek Nature Notes. This week they offer "Partridge Peas, Caterpillars, Berries, and an Unexpected Artifact."
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Around Iowa (Features about Places and Things)
Joan Zwagerman
RAGBRAI is over. Joan has never partaken, but she loves bicycles and is fighting her own bike battle.
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Pat Kinney
Retired Jesup banker/farmer Albert "Sparky" Duroe, 80, lives up to his nickname. He’s restored more than 200 vintage tractors and is still going strong.
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Lisa Grouette
Follow Lisa Grouette along for a hiking tour of Iowa.
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Connie Taylor
The Campbell family (a/k/a the corndog people) are about corndogs, yes. But they really are about family and memories. Connie sits down with them for a talk full of facts, figures, and love.
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Diversity in the Heartland
Douglas Burns
The Iowa Mercury showcases a vital guest voice, Maria Torres of Council Bluffs, whose post is headlined: Frightened Latino immigrants ask 'white' friends to go to grocery with them, advocate says.
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Hola Iowa
The mother of a teen who lost her life in a tragic hit-and-run collision just days before her quinceañera keeps her daughter’s legacy alive with Simply Loved, a nonprofit focused on uplifting and empowering vulnerable young women.
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Humor
Vicki Minor
The Grocery Thief
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Human Interest (Interviews)
Phoebe Wall Howard
Phoebe brings readers so close to a sailing story one can almost feel the 45 degree heel of a boat.
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Religion
Dan Henderson
If you are an unmarried woman found to be pregnant in the state of Tennessee, you are now at the mercy of the “conscience” of any doctor who judges you by their personal morality. Christian Nationalist cruelty is on display... and Iowa should be watching.
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Business
Tej Dhawan
How a multi-billion dollar, publicly traded company was created while its competitors did things the way they'd always been done.
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Music
Kathryn Severing Fox
The flow of a river is a respite from the road life of this musician. Check out the song she just wrote for you. Read more
Chip Albright
Hinterland weekend is upon us in Iowa! Learn about their new "90 Degree Guarantee" climate policy for 2025 and personal festival experiences from the author, singer-songwriter Chip Albright, in this week’s edition of Chip Happens.
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The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative in Winterset
We had a memorable time in Winterset last weekend as members of our group gathered on the Madison County square with some of our paid subscribers to watch Storm Lake—a documentary film about one of our own, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Art Cullen. The movie chronicles the story of his family-owned newspaper and the uphill battle to keep it alive amid a shifting economy and the evaporation of local advertising dollars. It’s a story too many local newspapers have lived—and many haven’t survived.
This, in part, is why the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative exists. We connect readers to writers who care about what’s happening in our state—from corn dogs and rock concerts in the hinterlands to the more sobering truths, like living in a “toxic cesspool” of undrinkable water.
Art Cullen, never one to look away from hard truths, is in the early stages of producing a new documentary—this time focused on Iowa’s water quality crisis. We’re inching toward a tipping point, and it’s not just the fish who should be alarmed.
Writers from both the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative and Iowa Capital Dispatch have been sounding the alarm for years. And now, more momentum is building.
The Harkin Institute will host a symposium on Iowa water quality on Sunday, August 4, at 6 p.m. in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus. An important new study will be at the center of this discussion. A problem named is a problem on its way to being solved—and we believe this issue demands attention. Sign up here
This is where commentary like ours comes in. It shines a light. It raises a flag. It starts conversations that can lead to change.
We are grateful to our paid subscribers, whose support helps keep this work alive. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, consider joining us by supporting any one of our members. Your support matters. It really does.