If you thought you left young adult novels in your past, Adib Khorram is going to make you rethink your choices. The Kansas City native is the bestselling author of the YA series Darius the Great and a 2021 picture book, Seven Special Somethings: A Nowruz Story. His 2022 release, Kiss and Tell, is a […]
Lily DeTaeye
Posted inCentral Iowa
DMPL and five other Iowa libraries to offer free digital literacy workshops, funded through national program
Des Moines Public Library (DMPL), along with 159 other American libraries will join the Public Library Association’s (PLA) Digital Literacy Workshop Incentive cohort supported by AT&T. DMPL is one of six Iowa libraries that will join the cohort. The others are Letts Public Library in Letts, Ericson Public Library in Boone, Columbus Junction Public Library […]
Posted inCentral Iowa
Pieper Lewis case reignites conversations about sex trafficking in Iowa: ‘I think things are going to change’
Pieper Lewis’s case became national news when the 17-year-old was sentenced last month for the June 2020 killing of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks, who allegedly bought her from a sex trafficker and repeatedly raped her. Lewis was arrested when she was 15 and spent two years in jail before her sentencing. According to the Des Moines […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Five questions with: storyteller and speech pathologist Mama Edie Armstrong
On Saturday, Oct. 8, the Des Moines Public Library will hold its first Community Table Storytelling and Local Food Festival at three different locations around Des Moines. Alongside food vendors and activities, the festival will feature a lineup of acclaimed storytellers from across the country. One of these performers is Mama Edie Armstrong. The Chicago […]
Posted inCentral Iowa
Buy books, support reproductive education at the 60th Planned Parenthood Book Sale
Autumn is here and you may be looking forward to cozying up with a few books as the weather gets colder. But if your bookshelves are in need of an update, you’re in luck. The Planned Parenthood Book Sale at the Iowa State Fairgrounds is back again this fall. The event celebrated its 60th anniversary […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Five questions with: Andy Colpitts, touring cast member in Bread and Puppet Theatre
Founded in 1963 as a way to tell neighborhood stories of New York City’s Lower East Side, Bread & Puppet Theatre is considered one of the oldest, non-profit, politically-driven theater companies in the country. In 1974, the company moved its home-base to Glover, Vermont, where it now operates a museum of retired puppets in an […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Christ on a bike! ‘Dixie’s Tupperware Party’ comes to Des Moines for all your storage and entertainment needs
Since 2004, Dixie Longate has been taking her Tupperware party to stages across the country, beginning off-Broadway. Until Oct. 2, you can catch Longate and her many plastic bowls at the Temple Theater in Des Moines. But if you haven’t yet been acquainted with Longate’s presentation, allow me to fill you in. The fast-talking, larger-than-life […]
Posted inCentral Iowa
Built in 1917, Varsity Cinema is getting a $5 million upgrade thanks to Des Moines film lovers
In the mid-1990s, Ben Godar started making the drive from Ames to Des Moines to go to the Varsity Cinema. “Back then, the Varsity was just one of those places that would get films that nobody else had,” he recalls. Now, as four years of renovations on the Varsity come to a close, Godar, who […]
Posted inCentral Iowa
A beekeeper is born: Kara Kelso harvests honey and explains why Des Moines has ‘some of the healthiest bees around’
“Look at this pollen pocket! Look at this girl!” Kara Kelso, co-owner of The Slow Down Coffee Co., excitedly directs my attention to one of her 210,000 bees who is crawling across the frame with big (relative to her size, of course) yellow pockets bursting with pollen. We are in Kelso’s backyard in the Highland […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Five questions with Sharon Isbin, the ‘high priestess of the guitar,’ ahead of her Des Moines concerts
Sharon Isbin has been called “the pre-eminent guitarist of our time,” “finer even then Segovia,” and “the high priestess of the guitar” by news outlets across the world. The Minnesota native has received four Grammy nominations and two wins and has released 30 albums in her impressive classical guitar career. Working with composers and artists […]
Posted inCentral Iowa
Test your beer puppeteering skills at Des Moines Oktoberfest this weekend
Des Moines Oktoberfest will return this weekend with new events, an impressive list of beers and the promise of a great time. Always held the last full weekend of September, Des Moines Oktoberfest is a beer-centered block party that takes place south of Court Avenue on 4th Street. In 2017, organizers added the Party Plaza […]
Posted inCentral Iowa
‘There was no doubt that she loved Des Moines’: Local businesses help raise money for Autumn Rupkey Memorial Build
There are some people who walk the earth and make an immediate and lasting impact on everyone they meet. Whether through their service, their art, their kindness or all of these things combined, they create positive change even if their time is short. Autumn Rupkey was one of these people. “I think that Autumn really […]
