“My marriage ended on a Monday.” Lyz Lenz opens This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life (out Feb. 20, 2024) this simply. And she pulls no punches in laying out her nonfiction narrative that interrogates the traditions and institutions behind marriage. We follow the arc of Lenz’s divorce — her […]
Lyz Lenz
Posted inCommunity/News
Marginalization and book bans protect abusers, warns Iowa writer Lyz Lenz: ‘Silence always benefits power’
Growing up in a conservative evangelical family, Lyz Lenz internalized Old Testament proverbs, like, “It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.” She was conditioned to believe that anger was a bad emotion, especially if you were a girl or a woman. As […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘We can do better, because we’ve done better’: Deidre DeJear on Iowa’s future, LGBTQ rights, abortion access and legalizing cannabis
“I just want to get back to basics,” Deidre DeJear told the people gathered on the fifth floor patio of the Chauncey on Thursday evening, in response to a question about what her first three priorities would be if elected governor. The Democratic nominee named funding public education, guaranteeing the right to choose an abortion […]
Posted inEastern Iowa Community/News
Man drives his truck into protesters marching for abortion rights in Cedar Rapids
A man drove his pickup truck into protesters crossing a street in Cedar Rapids on Friday night. This happened at the end of a march in response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision overruling Roe v. Wade and eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion, as protesters who had gathered for a rally and march […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Cedar Rapids writer Lyz Lenz interviewed in ‘The Daily Show’ segment about Iowa Caucus
Why is Iowa first? The question is ubiquitous during the presidential election season, and was the subject of a segment on Wednesday night’s episode of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. In that nearly six-minute segment, Daily Show correspondent Jordan Klepper dons a winter coat and heads to Des Moines and the surrounding cities to
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review: ‘God Land: A Story of Faith, Loss, and Renewal in Middle America’ by Lyz Lenz
I heard about Lyz Lenz’s newest book, ‘God Land: A Story of Faith, Loss, and Renewal in Middle America’ (out Aug. 1), a few months ago and had been eager to read it, as it brought together almost all of my personal and professional interests: art, religion, community, Iowa, theology, space, place, stories. It is an audacious attempt to synthesize
