Julie Gammack's Iowa Potluck

My guests are Pat Rynard , founder of Iowa Starting Line, and Liz Fleming , better known online as “Liz from Iowa.” Together they’re leading the Iowa Creator Corps , a project that trains and supports content creators who use platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, podcasts, and Substack to tell Iowa stories and engage new audiences. Our conversation explores the changing media landscape, the...

Kansas Journalist Tim Carpenter Offers Perspective on Zach Lahn’s Kansas Years Veteran Kansas political reporter Tim Carpenter joined the Potluck to discuss what Iowa voters may want to know about Republican gubernatorial nominee Zach Lahn’s years in Kansas. Throughout the conversation, Carpenter was careful to distinguish between documented facts, his own observations, and areas where he believes...

Our guest on Monday knew at a very young age that he wanted baseball to be part of his life. As fate would have it, that wasn’t going to happen as a player. Some people seem born for their names. Judges judge. Farmers farm. Bakers bake. And then there’s Jared Diamond. A diamond, of course, is the shape of a baseball field. Not every Diamond becomes a baseball writer, but if you’re going to spend y...

The Lobe Rangers: Iowa Farmers Challenging the Status Quo Julie Gammack’s podcast featured the Lobe Rangers, a trio of Iowa farmers—Zach Smith, Matt Bormann, and James Hepp—who are advocating for practical changes in agriculture that they believe can improve Iowa’s water quality, soil health, and rural communities while also helping farmers remain profitable. The discussion opened with journalist,...

Laura Belin’s Analysis of Iowa’s Primary Election Results Laura Belin, editor of Bleeding Heartland and co-host of the Iowa Down Ballot podcast, joined the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative the morning after Iowa’s primary election to help unpack what happened and what it means for November. Her overall conclusion: Iowa voters sent a clear message that they are looking for candidates who engage directly...

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Incase you are wondering what is on my nose in this video, I fell on my face last Friday and have a few unsightly gashes. The show must go on, so a combination of bandages and concealer were deployed to hide the evidence. Sorry. Filmmaker Peter Hedges returns to Iowa this week for an event at the Iowa State Capitol Saturday at 11:00 a.m., hosted by a growing grassroots group called Iowans for Dece...

The conversation featured Iowa political analyst Laura Belin, who offered a wide-ranging look at the current legislative session, upcoming elections, and the broader political climate in Iowa. She described a legislature still working through several major issues, most notably property taxes, which remain the biggest point of disagreement between House and Senate Republicans. While there appears t...

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Scott MacFarlane reached a decisive turning point. Sitting—figuratively—in the chair once occupied by Walter Cronkite at CBS News, it hit him: he could no longer tolerate what legacy media had become. So he walked away. Just like that. Today, instead of working inside a large machine of producers, editors, and even someone assigned to comb his hair, he sits in a home studio with a fabric backdrop...

Welcome, new subscribers. You’ve just joined what I like to think of as a potluck—where everyone brings something to the table. On Mondays, you are invited to pull up a chair and join a live Zoom conversation I host with a special guest (and sometimes more than one). What makes these conversations different is that subscribers are not just listening—you are part of it. You can ask questions, offer...

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Some stories stay with you because of what happened. Others stay because of how they’re told. And every once in a while, a story does both. Today’s conversation lives in that rare space. Please watch and listen. We’re joined by Des Moines Register reporter Courtney Crowder and Dr. Michael Welsh , the University of Iowa physician-scientist whose decades of research helped unlock one of the most sig...

Welcome to new subscribers. Every Monday we host a guest and readers for a live Zoom conversation about the news, ideas, and whatever else comes up. We record the discussion and later post it as a podcast, as you find here. It’s a bit like pulling up a chair at a lively dinner party and listening in on the conversation. And as a subscriber to this column, you’re automatically invited to the table....

Welcome to new subscribers. Every Monday we host a guest and a small group of readers for a live Zoom conversation about the news, ideas, and whatever else comes up. We record the discussion and later post it as a podcast. It’s a bit like pulling up a chair at a lively dinner party and listening in on the conversation. And as a subscriber to this column, you’re automatically invited to the table....

I recently hosted a Zoom conversation with longtime Iowa trial lawyer Roxanne Conlin , and after viewing her green fingernail polish (Happy St. Patrick’s Day) the discussion quickly turned into a sobering look at how much civil rights and employment law in Iowa have changed. Roxanne, who has spent six decades representing workers and victims of discrimination, began by explaining a misconception m...

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Scott Anderson is one of America’s most respected journalists and historians of the modern Middle East. A longtime contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine , he is the bestselling author of Lawrence in Arabia and The Quiet Americans . He was our featured guest Monday, and more than 60 readers joined the conversation. His new book, King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution — A Story of Hubris...

Summary Our guest Monday was Iowa Democratic Party chair Rita Hart. Also on the call were readers from Washington, D.C., Decorah, Carroll, Council Bluffs and the metro area of Des Moines. Hart’s leadership was framed through her razor-thin 2020 congressional loss and her experience as a teacher and farmer in eastern Iowa. Hart says that race exposed major structural gaps between Democratic and Rep...

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In this episode of Julie Gammack’s Potluck , we welcome Geneva Overholser —former Washington Post ombudsman and former editor of The Des Moines Register —for a wide-ranging, urgent conversation about what’s happening to American journalism, and what might come next. Overholser opens with a blunt assessment of the recent upheaval at The Washington Post : it’s “a two-part story”—the brutal economics...

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Author Jarrett Dapier will be holding a book signing tonight, 6:30 p.m., Beaverdale Books. 2629 Beaver Ave # S1, Des Moines, Iowa. DATE: February 6, 2026 TIME: 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm Meeting summary Quick recap The meeting focused on discussing Jarrett’s graphic novel “Wake Now in the Fire,” which tells the true story of the 2013 banning of the graphic novel “Persepolis” in Chicago Public Schools. Jarr...

New subscribers: welcome. Each Monday, we gather for an informal conversation with influential thought leaders in industry and civic life. This week, we’re joined by Neil Brown , president of the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida. Readers are always welcome to join the discussion—please share this with someone who might enjoy being part of it. What happens when journalism’s past, presen...

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