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Storm Lake: Change, Resilience, and Hope in America's Heartland
"A reminder that even the smallest newspapers can hold the most powerful among us accountable."— The New York Times Book Review
Watch the documentary Storm Lake on PBS.
Iowa plays an outsize role in national politics. Iowa introduced Barack Obama and voted bigly for Donald Trump. But is it a bellwether for America, a harbinger of its future? Art Cullen’s answer is complicated and honest. In truth, Iowa is losing ground. The Trump trade wars are hammering farmers and manufacturers. Health insurance premiums and drug prices are soaring. That’s what Iowans are dealing with, and the problems they face are the problems of the heartland.
In this candid and timely book, Art Cullen—the Storm Lake Times newspaperman who won a Pulitzer Prize for taking on big corporate agri-industry and its poisoning of local rivers—describes how the heartland has changed dramatically over his career. In a story where politics, agriculture, the environment, and immigration all converge, Cullen offers an unsentimental ode to rural America and to the resilient people of a vibrant community of fifteen thousand in Northwest Iowa, as much survivors as their town.
Watch the documentary Storm Lake on PBS.
Iowa plays an outsize role in national politics. Iowa introduced Barack Obama and voted bigly for Donald Trump. But is it a bellwether for America, a harbinger of its future? Art Cullen’s answer is complicated and honest. In truth, Iowa is losing ground. The Trump trade wars are hammering farmers and manufacturers. Health insurance premiums and drug prices are soaring. That’s what Iowans are dealing with, and the problems they face are the problems of the heartland.
In this candid and timely book, Art Cullen—the Storm Lake Times newspaperman who won a Pulitzer Prize for taking on big corporate agri-industry and its poisoning of local rivers—describes how the heartland has changed dramatically over his career. In a story where politics, agriculture, the environment, and immigration all converge, Cullen offers an unsentimental ode to rural America and to the resilient people of a vibrant community of fifteen thousand in Northwest Iowa, as much survivors as their town.
336 pages, Paperback
First published October 2, 2018
79 people are currently reading
625 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 95 reviews
October 15, 2018
“Always be kind to any Cullens you meet,” my Grandma Mary McTigue told me, “There are very few of them and they’re probably related to us.” Full disclosure: Grandma Mary was herself a Cullen. Her little brother, Pat Cullen is Art Cullen’s father. My father’s big sister was Eileen (Murray) Cullen, Art’s mother. I was born and raised in Storm Lake, Iowa, and attended church and school with Art. We even played on the same baseball team. The Murray to Cullen to Flowers trinity was the backbone of our Little League championship team, the Eagles.
Upon the release of “Storm Lake” Art returned to his alma mater, the University of St. Thomas to read select passages. Afterward he was asked about his reaction to winning the Pulitzer Prize. Art confessed that he was surprised. I too was surprised—that Art hadn’t won newspaper’s most prestigious award much earlier, and much more frequently throughout his storied career at the Storm Lake Times. He’s been reading or writing newspapers all of his life. We both learned to read from the newspaper that Iowa depended on, the Des Moines Register. When I moved to Burlington as an 8th grader, Art envied me for being able to now receive the Burlington Hawkeye and absorb the wisdom of that paper’s editor and fellow Pulitzer Prize winner, John McCormally.
My favorite editorialists include Garrison Keillor, Maureen Dowd, and Peggy Noonan; all of whom satisfy my craving for a weekly warm fuzzy. You’re never guaranteed a warm fuzzy from Art who I believe is stronger than each of these, America’s greatest writers, all put together. He is the only writer today who can make me laugh, cry, roll my eyes, curse, and cheer him on, all within 900 words. When I’m done reading Art I have to get up, move around, and figure out how to address my conscience which Art has prodded, poked, and skewered. I am a changed man. As our Aunt Josephine use to say, “I’ve been transformed!” That means I have to stop talking about an issue and roll up my sleeves and go to work on that issue.
My review of “Storm Lake” will be very similar to a review of the time that I took Art on his first ride of Arnold Park’s classic, roller coaster, The Legend. We were middle schoolers waiting anxiously in line when we were told that there had been a terrible tragedy—a man had just fallen to his death from the roller coaster at it’s highest peak, the Point of No Return. Neither the longstanding rumors that The Legend had been condemned nor a man’s death kept us from continuing to wait in line until the body could be carried away and we could enjoy our own turn on the teeth shaking, near bone breaking ride. On that first ride after the accident we sat in the best seat with the best view, the first car. As we made our slow ascent to the peak, we saw all of Iowa beneath us: our families, an incredible lake, followed by breathtaking ups and downs, where we also saw our entire lives pass before us. Our ride, like the journey that Art takes you on in “Storm Lake,” eventually slowed to a steady crawl at the end, where we thanked God for saving us, and instantly gained the confidence to take on even bigger challenges in the future—at that time to muster the courage for a ride on the Wild Mouse. Today Art prepares us for the challenge of handing off a safer, healthier world to our children.
If you’re from Storm Lake, Buena Vista County, northwest Iowa, or any other community in Iowa you need to read this book of the history of our land with the most fertile soil in the world and how we are squandering this precious gift. If you live anywhere else that requires water to drink, bathe, recreate, or nourish the plants or animals that you eat, you for sure need to read this book. “Storm Lake” is so well crafted that readers from Iowa to Ireland to India will recognize all the characters, as well as elected representatives—some courageous, but often despairingly dimwitted. The book’s major themes of climate change, responsible agriculture, water conservation, and immigration are demystified by Art’s chronicle of one mighty small Iowa town newspaper’s common sense, family value approach to making it all work and still play, and most importantly eat together at the end of the day. At a time when newspaper journalism seems to be on the wane, Art leads the way with a blueprint for the critical role journalists must play in enlightening the electorate and ensuring we work these issues out and maintain our democracy. You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. I lucked out with the Cullens.
Please read “Storm Lake” and then please buy copies for your elected representatives and demand that they read and follow its lead as well.
Upon the release of “Storm Lake” Art returned to his alma mater, the University of St. Thomas to read select passages. Afterward he was asked about his reaction to winning the Pulitzer Prize. Art confessed that he was surprised. I too was surprised—that Art hadn’t won newspaper’s most prestigious award much earlier, and much more frequently throughout his storied career at the Storm Lake Times. He’s been reading or writing newspapers all of his life. We both learned to read from the newspaper that Iowa depended on, the Des Moines Register. When I moved to Burlington as an 8th grader, Art envied me for being able to now receive the Burlington Hawkeye and absorb the wisdom of that paper’s editor and fellow Pulitzer Prize winner, John McCormally.
My favorite editorialists include Garrison Keillor, Maureen Dowd, and Peggy Noonan; all of whom satisfy my craving for a weekly warm fuzzy. You’re never guaranteed a warm fuzzy from Art who I believe is stronger than each of these, America’s greatest writers, all put together. He is the only writer today who can make me laugh, cry, roll my eyes, curse, and cheer him on, all within 900 words. When I’m done reading Art I have to get up, move around, and figure out how to address my conscience which Art has prodded, poked, and skewered. I am a changed man. As our Aunt Josephine use to say, “I’ve been transformed!” That means I have to stop talking about an issue and roll up my sleeves and go to work on that issue.
My review of “Storm Lake” will be very similar to a review of the time that I took Art on his first ride of Arnold Park’s classic, roller coaster, The Legend. We were middle schoolers waiting anxiously in line when we were told that there had been a terrible tragedy—a man had just fallen to his death from the roller coaster at it’s highest peak, the Point of No Return. Neither the longstanding rumors that The Legend had been condemned nor a man’s death kept us from continuing to wait in line until the body could be carried away and we could enjoy our own turn on the teeth shaking, near bone breaking ride. On that first ride after the accident we sat in the best seat with the best view, the first car. As we made our slow ascent to the peak, we saw all of Iowa beneath us: our families, an incredible lake, followed by breathtaking ups and downs, where we also saw our entire lives pass before us. Our ride, like the journey that Art takes you on in “Storm Lake,” eventually slowed to a steady crawl at the end, where we thanked God for saving us, and instantly gained the confidence to take on even bigger challenges in the future—at that time to muster the courage for a ride on the Wild Mouse. Today Art prepares us for the challenge of handing off a safer, healthier world to our children.
If you’re from Storm Lake, Buena Vista County, northwest Iowa, or any other community in Iowa you need to read this book of the history of our land with the most fertile soil in the world and how we are squandering this precious gift. If you live anywhere else that requires water to drink, bathe, recreate, or nourish the plants or animals that you eat, you for sure need to read this book. “Storm Lake” is so well crafted that readers from Iowa to Ireland to India will recognize all the characters, as well as elected representatives—some courageous, but often despairingly dimwitted. The book’s major themes of climate change, responsible agriculture, water conservation, and immigration are demystified by Art’s chronicle of one mighty small Iowa town newspaper’s common sense, family value approach to making it all work and still play, and most importantly eat together at the end of the day. At a time when newspaper journalism seems to be on the wane, Art leads the way with a blueprint for the critical role journalists must play in enlightening the electorate and ensuring we work these issues out and maintain our democracy. You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. I lucked out with the Cullens.
Please read “Storm Lake” and then please buy copies for your elected representatives and demand that they read and follow its lead as well.
July 17, 2018
It’s different being a reporter. You purposely become inquisitive, friendly, nosy, and even annoying. You know more about the town, the neighbors, the politicians, the local celebrities, than anyone else can without being arrested as a pervert of some kind. You can accost people in bars and knock on doors at will. Art Cullen has accumulated decades of this news gathering and distilled it into a book. Storm Lake, where he lives, is in the northwestern quadrant of Iowa. It is a small town, and his newspaper only has a few thousand readers. He and his older brother John keep it alive, and Storm Lake keeps them going.
It transpires that Iowa is no different than the rest of the country. It has long established families, newcomers, immigrants, and kids, some of whom stay for life and some who can’t wait to leave. Cullen has stories of all kinds to go along with the stereotypes. Thumbnail sketches and longer tales all add up to a vibrant and often really “with it” community. They are embarrassed by their elected officials, welcoming to immigrants, and learning to be respectful of the environment, which is particularly hard in Iowa, which is exploiting the land for corn – to the max.
He can’t relate to the bitter white people with their centrally airconditioned houses, boats on the lake and jobs for life. They hate immigrants and how they are stealing jobs, money and livelihoods (they claim). But the school district is desperate for them in order to keep enrollments from falling further. They have given the town multinational groceries and restaurants, graduated scientists and administrators who stay to give back, and added new music to the canon. Cullen delights in their presence. There are Sudanese, Laotians and Mexicans in Storm Lake, Iowa. The Mexicans hail from Storm Lake’s twin city in Mexico, which also raises corn and packs meat. They come north to make decent money for doing similar work, and often go home either to enjoy their “wealth” or because the discrimination is too much to waste a life on. Cullen visits the town and is fairly stunned to find all kinds of people there have lived in Storm Lake, speak English and know the town well. He is welcomed everywhere. They appreciate the link to Storm Lake, even if the locals back in Iowa don’t know about the connection.
The state’s biggest celebrity currently is Representative Steve King, whose misogyny and hatred rings forth loud and clear nationally. A local embarrassment, he is unseatable because the Democrats won’t make the effort. The mayor won’t talk to the paper, because he claims it is “fake news”. But the Storm Lake Times and Cullen won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for its series of editorials and stories on agriculture’s environmental damage and the corruption of county officials in actively hiding barrels of cash to fend off environmental challenges to its stewardship (or lack thereof). Big Ag acts just like Big Tobacco. The lake itself has gone from 17 feet deep to two, thanks to farmers planting right to its edge, running underground streams of perforated tiles to take topsoil quietly into the lake (20 tons per acre during heavy rains) and poisoning everything with pesticides and chemical fertilizers to keep the monoculture yield up.
I will not forget a story on the news last year, in which a reporter asked local Iowa farmers about all their topsoil ending up in the Mississippi delta, poisoning the fish and the shrimp and creating a death zone bereft of oxygen, the size of New Jersey. One farmer didn’t even bother leaning out of his pickup, saying “Not my problem.” It’s not all hugs and kisses in Iowa, and Cullen tries to be fair. He is a reporter, not a crusader. He is at his best describing the attempts to understand the problem, deal with the consequences and get farmers to co-operate in saving their own land, which has so little topsoil left the rains take whole corn plants right into the rivers and lakes with it. It’s the most dramatic part of the book.
His is a family of ink-stained wretches. They’ve all been bitten by the reporting bug, either helping out to keep the Storm Lake Times going, or running off to found their own papers, stopping to get experience at other papers along the way. It’s a seven day a week job, and simply takes over their lives. But the result is a web of connections well beyond anything Facebook is capable of, a depth of knowledge well beyond Twitter, and respect far more genuine than anything Linked In provides.
Storm Lake often seems to be written purely for Iowans. Cullen seems to be trying inculcate a sense of pride and worth in his fellow Iowans, making the point that efforts are worthwhile, that life is better there, and that everyone needs to keep at it. I got confused many times as to whether “we” referred to the staff of the paper or Iowans in general, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. It’s a look at the state of the state which most city dwellers can’t picture accurately.
David Wineberg
It transpires that Iowa is no different than the rest of the country. It has long established families, newcomers, immigrants, and kids, some of whom stay for life and some who can’t wait to leave. Cullen has stories of all kinds to go along with the stereotypes. Thumbnail sketches and longer tales all add up to a vibrant and often really “with it” community. They are embarrassed by their elected officials, welcoming to immigrants, and learning to be respectful of the environment, which is particularly hard in Iowa, which is exploiting the land for corn – to the max.
He can’t relate to the bitter white people with their centrally airconditioned houses, boats on the lake and jobs for life. They hate immigrants and how they are stealing jobs, money and livelihoods (they claim). But the school district is desperate for them in order to keep enrollments from falling further. They have given the town multinational groceries and restaurants, graduated scientists and administrators who stay to give back, and added new music to the canon. Cullen delights in their presence. There are Sudanese, Laotians and Mexicans in Storm Lake, Iowa. The Mexicans hail from Storm Lake’s twin city in Mexico, which also raises corn and packs meat. They come north to make decent money for doing similar work, and often go home either to enjoy their “wealth” or because the discrimination is too much to waste a life on. Cullen visits the town and is fairly stunned to find all kinds of people there have lived in Storm Lake, speak English and know the town well. He is welcomed everywhere. They appreciate the link to Storm Lake, even if the locals back in Iowa don’t know about the connection.
The state’s biggest celebrity currently is Representative Steve King, whose misogyny and hatred rings forth loud and clear nationally. A local embarrassment, he is unseatable because the Democrats won’t make the effort. The mayor won’t talk to the paper, because he claims it is “fake news”. But the Storm Lake Times and Cullen won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for its series of editorials and stories on agriculture’s environmental damage and the corruption of county officials in actively hiding barrels of cash to fend off environmental challenges to its stewardship (or lack thereof). Big Ag acts just like Big Tobacco. The lake itself has gone from 17 feet deep to two, thanks to farmers planting right to its edge, running underground streams of perforated tiles to take topsoil quietly into the lake (20 tons per acre during heavy rains) and poisoning everything with pesticides and chemical fertilizers to keep the monoculture yield up.
I will not forget a story on the news last year, in which a reporter asked local Iowa farmers about all their topsoil ending up in the Mississippi delta, poisoning the fish and the shrimp and creating a death zone bereft of oxygen, the size of New Jersey. One farmer didn’t even bother leaning out of his pickup, saying “Not my problem.” It’s not all hugs and kisses in Iowa, and Cullen tries to be fair. He is a reporter, not a crusader. He is at his best describing the attempts to understand the problem, deal with the consequences and get farmers to co-operate in saving their own land, which has so little topsoil left the rains take whole corn plants right into the rivers and lakes with it. It’s the most dramatic part of the book.
His is a family of ink-stained wretches. They’ve all been bitten by the reporting bug, either helping out to keep the Storm Lake Times going, or running off to found their own papers, stopping to get experience at other papers along the way. It’s a seven day a week job, and simply takes over their lives. But the result is a web of connections well beyond anything Facebook is capable of, a depth of knowledge well beyond Twitter, and respect far more genuine than anything Linked In provides.
Storm Lake often seems to be written purely for Iowans. Cullen seems to be trying inculcate a sense of pride and worth in his fellow Iowans, making the point that efforts are worthwhile, that life is better there, and that everyone needs to keep at it. I got confused many times as to whether “we” referred to the staff of the paper or Iowans in general, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. It’s a look at the state of the state which most city dwellers can’t picture accurately.
David Wineberg
November 26, 2018
You are tempted when you are three pages in to declare that a GREAT drinking game would be to have to shotgun every time he mentioned the Pulitzer. He calms down about it after a few chapters, and to be fair, if I won one writing for a twice a week paper in Iowa, I would probably staple it to my forehead.
I’m guessing that in Storm Lake, Iowa that Cullen is a big deal and people care about his musings. So he wrote this assuming you would be fascinated, instead of trying to earn your interest. I almost never give up on a book, but Cullen telling me his life story almost made me bail.
There were some good things that were worth hanging around for, and it’s always fantastic that a good journalist has to become a minor expert on what they cover, so his take on agriculture and the state of community journalism is spot on and fun to read.
But this book was like seeing a concert by a band who have a couple great songs but don’t understand pacing and song placement and have to talk before every song. They put their best songs in the middle of the show, so the music never builds to something great. In the same way, the book takes off when he starts writing about the big agricultural business pollution issues, but it is given rather short shrift and by the time he wraps it up, there is a good quarter of the book left to slog through.
It needed an editor in the worst way but my guess is that no one tells Cullen anything about writing; he won the Pulitzer after all. It’s a shame; he got in the way of his own story.
I’m guessing that in Storm Lake, Iowa that Cullen is a big deal and people care about his musings. So he wrote this assuming you would be fascinated, instead of trying to earn your interest. I almost never give up on a book, but Cullen telling me his life story almost made me bail.
There were some good things that were worth hanging around for, and it’s always fantastic that a good journalist has to become a minor expert on what they cover, so his take on agriculture and the state of community journalism is spot on and fun to read.
But this book was like seeing a concert by a band who have a couple great songs but don’t understand pacing and song placement and have to talk before every song. They put their best songs in the middle of the show, so the music never builds to something great. In the same way, the book takes off when he starts writing about the big agricultural business pollution issues, but it is given rather short shrift and by the time he wraps it up, there is a good quarter of the book left to slog through.
It needed an editor in the worst way but my guess is that no one tells Cullen anything about writing; he won the Pulitzer after all. It’s a shame; he got in the way of his own story.
December 12, 2018
I feel a little bad giving this such a low rating, because I did enjoy it. It reminded me of a long talk over coffee with some of the best, old-school newspaper editors and columnists I've worked with. But unless you're from Iowa or have had the work experiences I have had, to fill you with nostalgia, I just don't know that you'll get much from this book. Which is too bad, because Cullen is making some extremely important points about politics and climate change and community. But his style is so meandering, I think most readers either won't stick with it long enough.
May 30, 2025
I learned so much about the place I grew up in. This book had many connections for me. It was a conversational, interesting read.
August 22, 2020
I first heard of Art Cullen when his work was published in a New York Times editorial. I later learned he won a Pulitzer Prize and was part owner and founder of the Storm Lake Times. I was stunned to discover this having lived in Storm Lake as a youth. I lived there at a magical time of life from the age of 7 to 15 and in a magical place. No one locked their doors and a bicycle allowed access to anywhere in the entire town within 15 minutes. Let this serve as a disclaimer for a generous score of 5 when a solid 4 would be more in line for someone not having the hometown connection.
Art Cullen is a wonderful writer and absolutely essential cog in the machinery of our Republic. His community first journalistic approach and dogged investigative journalistic activity are the gold standard for a free press and essential for a functioning democracy. The tragedy of the decline of the investigative journalist as a result of predatory greed by self serving conglomerates metastasizes as endemic corruption in our politics and broader society.
Art Cullen and his brother’s story founding the Storm Lake Times is inspiring and incredible. They are producing world class investigative journalism and serving a community of 15,000 where 30 languages are spoken. Storm Lake is one of the largest processors of poultry and pork in the world. Art captures the drama, hope, and challenges of integrating Humong, Mexican, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Guatemalan, and numerous other nationalities into the penultimate melting pot that is Storm Lake, Iowa.
I absolutely can’t recommend highly enough this book and wonderful author to allow the reader a deeper understanding of a small place so critical to the heart and soul of America. I will subscribe to his paper as a result of his book to keep the dream alive.
Art Cullen is a wonderful writer and absolutely essential cog in the machinery of our Republic. His community first journalistic approach and dogged investigative journalistic activity are the gold standard for a free press and essential for a functioning democracy. The tragedy of the decline of the investigative journalist as a result of predatory greed by self serving conglomerates metastasizes as endemic corruption in our politics and broader society.
Art Cullen and his brother’s story founding the Storm Lake Times is inspiring and incredible. They are producing world class investigative journalism and serving a community of 15,000 where 30 languages are spoken. Storm Lake is one of the largest processors of poultry and pork in the world. Art captures the drama, hope, and challenges of integrating Humong, Mexican, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Guatemalan, and numerous other nationalities into the penultimate melting pot that is Storm Lake, Iowa.
I absolutely can’t recommend highly enough this book and wonderful author to allow the reader a deeper understanding of a small place so critical to the heart and soul of America. I will subscribe to his paper as a result of his book to keep the dream alive.
September 17, 2022
Art Cullen tells a story of history, change, living & thriving with diversity. When he speaks of problems of Storm Lake and Iowa he is honest, leaving the reader with hope and the belief that only when we honor all folks in our neighborhoods then can we find the solutions we need.
September 14, 2018
Wow. This is a beauty of a book, and a real love letter to rural Iowa, warts and all.
I read an advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for my review on Goodreads. Full disclosure: my husband John and I spent time with Art in 2017 and 2018 while John ran for the Democratic nomination for Congress. John did not win the three-way Democratic primary in June of this year. He did, however, earn the endorsement of Art Cullen and the Storm Lake Times during the primary. We consider Art and John and Tom Cullen friends, so this review comes loaded down with bias.
My journalism training came from the wonderful professors at Iowa State University, a land grant university where I met open-minded professors willing to take a chance on a girl from Ames. Art Cullen appears to have had similar good fortune in his career, and has found joy in his work and in his marriage to the wonderful, talented Dolores.
I will always love Iowa. I will never stop asking questions. My Catholic faith has shaped who I am. I love newspapers, good reporting and politics. In many ways, Art Cullen and I were cut from the same cloth. We also have that ability to drive those who care for us crazy. I guess it is part of our charm.
Thanks Art Cullen and everyone who makes the Storm Lake Times one of the best newspapers in the country. I tried to get an online subscription, but your web site has too many hoops to jump through. I will probably end up getting the newspaper mailed to me in Ames, I enjoy it so much.
See you real soon, Storm Lake. You make us proud to be Iowans.
I read an advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for my review on Goodreads. Full disclosure: my husband John and I spent time with Art in 2017 and 2018 while John ran for the Democratic nomination for Congress. John did not win the three-way Democratic primary in June of this year. He did, however, earn the endorsement of Art Cullen and the Storm Lake Times during the primary. We consider Art and John and Tom Cullen friends, so this review comes loaded down with bias.
My journalism training came from the wonderful professors at Iowa State University, a land grant university where I met open-minded professors willing to take a chance on a girl from Ames. Art Cullen appears to have had similar good fortune in his career, and has found joy in his work and in his marriage to the wonderful, talented Dolores.
I will always love Iowa. I will never stop asking questions. My Catholic faith has shaped who I am. I love newspapers, good reporting and politics. In many ways, Art Cullen and I were cut from the same cloth. We also have that ability to drive those who care for us crazy. I guess it is part of our charm.
Thanks Art Cullen and everyone who makes the Storm Lake Times one of the best newspapers in the country. I tried to get an online subscription, but your web site has too many hoops to jump through. I will probably end up getting the newspaper mailed to me in Ames, I enjoy it so much.
See you real soon, Storm Lake. You make us proud to be Iowans.
August 10, 2020
Art Cullen, editor of The Storm Lake Times, in Storm Lake, IA, has written what I hope will become a classic case study for future journalists. For decades, Cullen and his immediate family have worked their tails off to foster the goal of their newspaper to build "a community and not an unrelated gathering of people." This may surprise some east and west coast folks, aren't all Iowa small towns the same -- quaint, quiet happy places? It would only take a few issues of the twice-a-week Times to show you otherwise. Storm Lake has diverse, multicultural families to employ, house and educate, water pollution problems, lack of affordable health care, loss of small businesses due to big box chains, and loss of surrounding farm land viability. But Storm Lake and Buena Vista County also have a force of nature in Art Cullen whose determination, persuasive writing skills, willingness to take on the powerful agri-business and political groups have provided positive leadership in this northwest Iowa farm town. Cullen won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for his editorials and the paper's reporting on a lawsuit (secretly funded by agri-business mega firms) over who was responsible for clean up of agricultural runoff that was polluting the river and lakes. Cullen's command of facts and ability to give an overview of Iowa politics that relate to local issues make his voice credible, a quality that is key to journalistic success.
One of themes of the book is Cullen's plea for taking better care of the land, with more sustainable crop, livestock and soil conservation practices, as well as less use of water for food growth and processing. He writes beautifully of the geologic history of Iowa and the indigenous people who knew the importance of allowing prairie grasses to hold water and let some land rest. Along with the big issues, Cullen is just as gifted writing with heart and soul about Storm Lake residents. In a chapter, A Place to Call Home, he tells us of the hopes and dreams of Topiz from Mexico, who runs the Better Day Cafe, and two vegetable sellers from Thailand Mang Ziong and Nhia Yang, as well as many others, some of whom have lived in the area for generations. When I first heard of this book, I expected it to be primarily about the lawsuit reporting and how the Times won the Pulitzer. This achievement is almost a minor part of the book; rather Cullen has opened his heart to write a memoir of his life and love for a place on the planet called Storm Lake. Superb read!
One of themes of the book is Cullen's plea for taking better care of the land, with more sustainable crop, livestock and soil conservation practices, as well as less use of water for food growth and processing. He writes beautifully of the geologic history of Iowa and the indigenous people who knew the importance of allowing prairie grasses to hold water and let some land rest. Along with the big issues, Cullen is just as gifted writing with heart and soul about Storm Lake residents. In a chapter, A Place to Call Home, he tells us of the hopes and dreams of Topiz from Mexico, who runs the Better Day Cafe, and two vegetable sellers from Thailand Mang Ziong and Nhia Yang, as well as many others, some of whom have lived in the area for generations. When I first heard of this book, I expected it to be primarily about the lawsuit reporting and how the Times won the Pulitzer. This achievement is almost a minor part of the book; rather Cullen has opened his heart to write a memoir of his life and love for a place on the planet called Storm Lake. Superb read!
June 4, 2020
Each chapter in Storm Lake could easily provoke a great discussion. It might be about the struggles of a small town newspaper, the plight of agriculture, the stories of immigrants living in rural Iowa, local politics' place in the bigger state and national scene or the joy of winning a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Storm Lake tells so much the community of Storm Lake in Buena Vista County. The town with its population of 15,000 relies heavily on employment at the local packing plant. Like so many other communities with this kind of industry, immigrants have provided a good share of the work force. That in turn has lead to challenges for housing, the school system, law enforcement, the local college and just how people get along in general. The town has met many of the challenges and certainly doesn't have it all solved, but they work on it as best they can in part due to the leadership provided by the local newspaper, the Storm Lake Times. I still need to mention the reason for the Pulitzer; Art Cullen wrote editorials pushing for transparency in a lawsuit over the safety of drinking water and who actually paid for the defense of the three counties who were sued. The challenges go on beyond the book of course. Author Cullen, the recipient of the Pulitzer, is sometimes in the national media; recently he wrote about the delay and lack of Covid 19 testing at the packing plant. State politics didn't put a priority on testing the workforce because of who the workers are. This is definitely a timely read that allows one to pursue more from Art Cullen. He is still out there trying to write the truth in the best journalistic fashion along with his reporter son Tom, brother John who is the publisher and wife Dolores who takes photos. An excellent book for these times.
December 30, 2018
An excellent read describing how a the editor of a small Iowa town newspaper was awarded the Noble prize for describing the horrific agricultural practices placed on Iowa farmers by big business. These practices have resulted into major damages to Iowa agricultural soils. A must read.
November 28, 2018
Published in 2018, Storm Lake was written by Art Cullen of the Storm Lake Times which won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for editorials taking on the big agricultural industry over its pollution of Iowa’s water. Many topics impacting rural Iowa are discussed in the book including but not limited to big agriculture, family farming, water pollution, land use and immigration. This book would be particularly appealing to anyone who enjoys investigative journalism or someone who farms or who has a tradition of farming in their family.
August 4, 2019
Storm Lake is a little town that has done a lot right. It has welcomed waves of immigrants, embraced their traditions and adapted to changes in the agricultural industry. Along the way they’ve made mistakes and are trying to deal with the environmental damage thanks in part to a strong local press.
Newspapers are essential to vibrant small towns. Without them, no one else will pay attention to the city council or the school board or anything else that’s happening unless it’s murder or a city official getting arrested.
This book will make you feel good about newspapering (and I’ll admit when they won the Pulitzer I might have cried a little bit).
The future needs more people like Art Cullen and all the reporters and staff at the Storm Lake Times.
Newspapers are essential to vibrant small towns. Without them, no one else will pay attention to the city council or the school board or anything else that’s happening unless it’s murder or a city official getting arrested.
This book will make you feel good about newspapering (and I’ll admit when they won the Pulitzer I might have cried a little bit).
The future needs more people like Art Cullen and all the reporters and staff at the Storm Lake Times.
January 7, 2024
Storm Lake: A Chronicle of Change, Resilience, and Hope from a Heartland Newspaper by Art Cullen.
4/5 rating.
Book #21 of 2020. April 11, 2020.
This is an interesting book written by the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Newspaper Editor of The @stormlaketimes. While I might be biased as it's about my hometown, I think it is a fascinating foray into the goings-on in a small town in Northwest Iowa.
Art does a great job of blending this book together from a few different topics: his life, the newspaper, and the current topics and discussions happening in the Midwest. Storm Lake is an anomaly as compared to a lot of the Midwest because of its large meatpacking plant bringing in a plethora of different races, cultures, and backgrounds. This mixture causes the people to be more cognizant of the positive impact that immigrants have on a town: something Art talks about at length.
One of the other largest topics is the changes that have occurred in agriculture over the last generation or so. While farms have become more efficient, this has completely changed the fabric of Iowa's small-towns and rural population: pushing many people out and forcing the farmers who stayed around to take on ever-more disruptive forms of farming to stay afloat.
This book would be a great read for anyone who wants to better understand Iowa, the Midwest, and obviously small-town life, a little bit better. It is a great story about how with phenomenal staff, small-town newspapers can still make a difference in communities and the world!
Quotes:
"Storm Lake was on edge. The entire town was built around meatpacking. Hygrade had six hundred men working. They sent their kids to the Catholic school and gave the church enough money that there was no tuition fee until our later years in school. They bought new pickups every other year, and boats. And now they were out of work. It was the Reagan era. They were freed from the union, and from employment."
"Disease comes on weather's wings and it is not at all clear whether such critical masses of livestock can be sustained under existing confinement technology. The USDA would have us believe that waterfowl spread the bird flu, but it has not contemplated in its formal research whether population density itself gives rise to the virus. Few waterfowl were found with it in Iowa or Minnesota. Outdoor chickens raised within sneezing distance of infected turkey barns were healthy, not even a sniffle."
"Farming is business, and figures say the business is going broke."
"I don't dwell on it because I should dwell on our newspaper and nobody else's. If we can't find out the news without reading another paper or listening to the radio or melding our minds to Twitter and Facebook, then we are not reporters."
"Iowa produces more renewable energy per capita than any other state; half of our electricity now comes from wind turbines. We are first in that, in corn and hogs, and in elderly and wrestling, and in almost every other category we are thirty-seventh. We like being thirty-seventh. It keeps us out of the way of Texas."
"King says that giving the children of undocumented status a pass amounts to amnesty. Ancestry implies an offense. That children can be considered to be violating the norms of Iowa or America by merely being here and going to school and wanting to get ahead puts logic upside down and mocks the biblical values hello high during the ceaseless campaign."
"During that time period, every angry man got himself a cell phone, then a smartphone with which he could share angry memes about that Crooked Hillary and show pictures of Barack Hussein Obama in a turban. The angry and forgotten man's wife is driving a huge SUV and texting on her smartphone to the girls that she will pick them up after cross-country practice because they are too tired to run home."
"The formula to revitalize rural America through education and federal/state investments could work - it is working in Storm Lake - if our politics didn't have the attention span of our president or any other typical politician. Like stock market investors demanding dividends in the next quarterly report with no long-term view of the future of the company, our political class is tuned to the next poll, whose curiosities distract us from the real goal: You get an education, you get a better job. You innovate. That is the American way. It was the Iowa way.
It's harder to get an education when the legislature continues to cut the budget in a relentless attack on public universities in particular and higher education in general. Legislative appropriations for state universities have dropped by a third since 2001, subtracting inflation."
"We don't ask each other anymore. It's hard to have a prejudice against someone you know."
"If you can just visit you can change hearts and minds. Most, anyway."
"The message we don't hear as much is how that fealty to ethanol might be undoing rural communities or polluting our lakes and streams from corn cultivation."
"Most Iowans never met a Mexican or thought about wielding a knife eight hours a day in a chilled room over a pork carcass. Yet they started believing that immigrants were threatening the way of life where no Mexicans or black folk live, thirty miles from Storm Lake. Rather than invite the poor to live in their communities like Ida Grove or Sac City, they bus them in thirty miles from Storm Lake to work in their village factories and return them home when day is done. The noise machine makes us think that way, that brown people are dangerous or somehow corrosive to our community. If their labor is cheap enough, it is good enough, but they need not live in the town they are bused into. Let Storm Lake house them and school them."
"The money even creates news as fact finders are marginalized by fantasies planted in social media and through email networks as fact: They will take away your freedom to farm, plus your guns. Immigrants will infest your town with drugs. The propaganda is meant to distract from the reality that contemporary corporate agriculture shall grow unimpeded.
Stoking fear helps strengthen the underlying message: Don't mess with Big Ag. It is our lifeline. Even though you are living paycheck to paycheck, you wouldn't have a paycheck were it not for agri-industry. It gets people to think that they must put up with water pollution, thyroid cancer, and a deteriorating Main Street or they surely will starve to death instead."
"The all-Republican statehouse is in classic overreach - gutting Medicaid and collective bargaining, building unconstitutional budget deficits that upset even the governing Republicans, putting state universities at the foot of business, and causing property tax increases by defunding K-12 schools and community colleges."
"Iowa always comes back to its senses, just before it's about to ride off the cliff into Kansas."
"[Republican Gary] Worthan told us that he would not talk to us because he could not get 'a fair shake' from us - despite the fact that we had run every one of his weekly legislative columns verbatim, which he generally used to complain about the minority Democrats getting in his way. Every committee appointment of his we duly noted in the paper. Now the strategy of running against the news media had seeped down to the local level. Tom Cullen was perfectly willing to report what Worthan wanted to say, but Worthan used his ridicule of our straight news reporting to pick up votes from a hard-core King base that believes we are patently dishonest."
"When it did rain in spring it came in buckets. The warmer, wetter nights roll out violent thunderstorms that wash our soils - with few buffers to stop them - down the river to choke the Louisiana bayou and suffocate the Gulf of Mexico with our phosphorus and nitrate and herbicide detritus. What soil is left is not sufficient to feed the plant. Our corn is getting poorer and starchier, although through mechanical, biological, and chemical engineering we manage to ratchet up yields. Over time, the farmer, although he might not quite see it, is losing value for his crops and land, once the full honest accounting is made relative to what the chemical complex took from him."
"Of the world's fresh water drawer annually, agriculture drinks 70 percent of it."
"It doesn't cost billions more to let rivers run clean. It takes a conscience. Or a USDA requirement that to get government crop insurance you must set aside 10 percent of your land to grass, as we did before Nixon agriculture secretary Earl Butz urged farmers to plant fencerow to fencerow to feed the world. The world remains starving, and planting through the fencerow is producing more headaches than food. We are beginning to learn that rethinking our approach reaps great rewards. Dr. Matt Helmers, a distinguished ag engineer from ISU, found that returning as little as 10 percent of a rolling farm field to native prairie grass can reduce nitrogen and phosphorus loss from a field by up to 90 percent per year."
"But the action must come from Congress, which continues to insist on cutting conservation programs that actually have been proven effective for the land and appreciated by farmers. We have wasted a lot of conservation money, but we also have done a lot of good with it at the margins and especially with the Conservation Reserve Program. The most recent speciousness is an argument that conservation programs hold back acres that would otherwise go to beginning young farmers. Which beginning young farmers are those? The ones whose fathers already control a couple of thousand acres? They will say anything in Washington these days."
"'I had too many problems in the United States because I am Mexican,' he said. 'Too many Americans don't like us. Whatever the problem, they say Mexican, Mexican, Mexican. But it's African, Nicaraguan, Salvadoran. I work in the snow, in the hot, on the kill floor, in the welding shop. But too many Americans say, "Hey, wetback." This is no good. Mexicans go to the United States to work. That's it.'"
"We were immediate best friends. Everywhere you go you meet somebody from Iowa."
"When James Madison wrote the First Amendment to the Constitution, he had you in mind. The reporter is the cornerstone of an informed electorate and a functioning democracy. Tyranny prevails wherever the press is not free."
"We strive for accuracy. When you spot your mistake in the paper, it should make you want to retch. Really. This is a healthy neuroticism. Correct your errors prominently and your credibility will build. When you lose that nausea over a mistake, go be a shaman in India."
"Newspapering is the most fun you can have fully clothed. If you find writing is a chore after a while, you are in the wrong business."
"Get the news up front. Don't wander around. Get in and get out. Over-report and under-write. Write for readers and not other editors. Write as if you were telling your mother about it in the kitchen. When appropriate, make them cry."
"The best journalism is that which builds communities. You build your community by publicizing good deeds done, by reporting on the cheats and scoundrels and other politicians, by urging yourself and those around you to do better, by allowing dissenting voices to be heard, and by making certain that your town's issues are heard in Des Moines and Washington's. Use your power to build, and the newspaper will grow naturally."
"You can change the world through journalism. Tom Paine did it with Common Sense. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post did it with Watergate. Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams did it - with one brutal photo he started the end of the Vietnam War. That's the only good reason to get into this business. Because, when you're looking for a friend, remember that the dog can't read."
"It was the small-business owners who had the last word, and it was unexpectedly powerful. 'Everybody here's talking about being fair to the insurance companies - when have they been fair to us?' Mr. Cullen said. 'Why do we have to be fair to them? It just incenses me when people talk that way. These people are legal thieves with antitrust protection, and we want to treat them with kid gloves. It drives me nuts!'"
4/5 rating.
Book #21 of 2020. April 11, 2020.
This is an interesting book written by the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Newspaper Editor of The @stormlaketimes. While I might be biased as it's about my hometown, I think it is a fascinating foray into the goings-on in a small town in Northwest Iowa.
Art does a great job of blending this book together from a few different topics: his life, the newspaper, and the current topics and discussions happening in the Midwest. Storm Lake is an anomaly as compared to a lot of the Midwest because of its large meatpacking plant bringing in a plethora of different races, cultures, and backgrounds. This mixture causes the people to be more cognizant of the positive impact that immigrants have on a town: something Art talks about at length.
One of the other largest topics is the changes that have occurred in agriculture over the last generation or so. While farms have become more efficient, this has completely changed the fabric of Iowa's small-towns and rural population: pushing many people out and forcing the farmers who stayed around to take on ever-more disruptive forms of farming to stay afloat.
This book would be a great read for anyone who wants to better understand Iowa, the Midwest, and obviously small-town life, a little bit better. It is a great story about how with phenomenal staff, small-town newspapers can still make a difference in communities and the world!
Quotes:
"Storm Lake was on edge. The entire town was built around meatpacking. Hygrade had six hundred men working. They sent their kids to the Catholic school and gave the church enough money that there was no tuition fee until our later years in school. They bought new pickups every other year, and boats. And now they were out of work. It was the Reagan era. They were freed from the union, and from employment."
"Disease comes on weather's wings and it is not at all clear whether such critical masses of livestock can be sustained under existing confinement technology. The USDA would have us believe that waterfowl spread the bird flu, but it has not contemplated in its formal research whether population density itself gives rise to the virus. Few waterfowl were found with it in Iowa or Minnesota. Outdoor chickens raised within sneezing distance of infected turkey barns were healthy, not even a sniffle."
"Farming is business, and figures say the business is going broke."
"I don't dwell on it because I should dwell on our newspaper and nobody else's. If we can't find out the news without reading another paper or listening to the radio or melding our minds to Twitter and Facebook, then we are not reporters."
"Iowa produces more renewable energy per capita than any other state; half of our electricity now comes from wind turbines. We are first in that, in corn and hogs, and in elderly and wrestling, and in almost every other category we are thirty-seventh. We like being thirty-seventh. It keeps us out of the way of Texas."
"King says that giving the children of undocumented status a pass amounts to amnesty. Ancestry implies an offense. That children can be considered to be violating the norms of Iowa or America by merely being here and going to school and wanting to get ahead puts logic upside down and mocks the biblical values hello high during the ceaseless campaign."
"During that time period, every angry man got himself a cell phone, then a smartphone with which he could share angry memes about that Crooked Hillary and show pictures of Barack Hussein Obama in a turban. The angry and forgotten man's wife is driving a huge SUV and texting on her smartphone to the girls that she will pick them up after cross-country practice because they are too tired to run home."
"The formula to revitalize rural America through education and federal/state investments could work - it is working in Storm Lake - if our politics didn't have the attention span of our president or any other typical politician. Like stock market investors demanding dividends in the next quarterly report with no long-term view of the future of the company, our political class is tuned to the next poll, whose curiosities distract us from the real goal: You get an education, you get a better job. You innovate. That is the American way. It was the Iowa way.
It's harder to get an education when the legislature continues to cut the budget in a relentless attack on public universities in particular and higher education in general. Legislative appropriations for state universities have dropped by a third since 2001, subtracting inflation."
"We don't ask each other anymore. It's hard to have a prejudice against someone you know."
"If you can just visit you can change hearts and minds. Most, anyway."
"The message we don't hear as much is how that fealty to ethanol might be undoing rural communities or polluting our lakes and streams from corn cultivation."
"Most Iowans never met a Mexican or thought about wielding a knife eight hours a day in a chilled room over a pork carcass. Yet they started believing that immigrants were threatening the way of life where no Mexicans or black folk live, thirty miles from Storm Lake. Rather than invite the poor to live in their communities like Ida Grove or Sac City, they bus them in thirty miles from Storm Lake to work in their village factories and return them home when day is done. The noise machine makes us think that way, that brown people are dangerous or somehow corrosive to our community. If their labor is cheap enough, it is good enough, but they need not live in the town they are bused into. Let Storm Lake house them and school them."
"The money even creates news as fact finders are marginalized by fantasies planted in social media and through email networks as fact: They will take away your freedom to farm, plus your guns. Immigrants will infest your town with drugs. The propaganda is meant to distract from the reality that contemporary corporate agriculture shall grow unimpeded.
Stoking fear helps strengthen the underlying message: Don't mess with Big Ag. It is our lifeline. Even though you are living paycheck to paycheck, you wouldn't have a paycheck were it not for agri-industry. It gets people to think that they must put up with water pollution, thyroid cancer, and a deteriorating Main Street or they surely will starve to death instead."
"The all-Republican statehouse is in classic overreach - gutting Medicaid and collective bargaining, building unconstitutional budget deficits that upset even the governing Republicans, putting state universities at the foot of business, and causing property tax increases by defunding K-12 schools and community colleges."
"Iowa always comes back to its senses, just before it's about to ride off the cliff into Kansas."
"[Republican Gary] Worthan told us that he would not talk to us because he could not get 'a fair shake' from us - despite the fact that we had run every one of his weekly legislative columns verbatim, which he generally used to complain about the minority Democrats getting in his way. Every committee appointment of his we duly noted in the paper. Now the strategy of running against the news media had seeped down to the local level. Tom Cullen was perfectly willing to report what Worthan wanted to say, but Worthan used his ridicule of our straight news reporting to pick up votes from a hard-core King base that believes we are patently dishonest."
"When it did rain in spring it came in buckets. The warmer, wetter nights roll out violent thunderstorms that wash our soils - with few buffers to stop them - down the river to choke the Louisiana bayou and suffocate the Gulf of Mexico with our phosphorus and nitrate and herbicide detritus. What soil is left is not sufficient to feed the plant. Our corn is getting poorer and starchier, although through mechanical, biological, and chemical engineering we manage to ratchet up yields. Over time, the farmer, although he might not quite see it, is losing value for his crops and land, once the full honest accounting is made relative to what the chemical complex took from him."
"Of the world's fresh water drawer annually, agriculture drinks 70 percent of it."
"It doesn't cost billions more to let rivers run clean. It takes a conscience. Or a USDA requirement that to get government crop insurance you must set aside 10 percent of your land to grass, as we did before Nixon agriculture secretary Earl Butz urged farmers to plant fencerow to fencerow to feed the world. The world remains starving, and planting through the fencerow is producing more headaches than food. We are beginning to learn that rethinking our approach reaps great rewards. Dr. Matt Helmers, a distinguished ag engineer from ISU, found that returning as little as 10 percent of a rolling farm field to native prairie grass can reduce nitrogen and phosphorus loss from a field by up to 90 percent per year."
"But the action must come from Congress, which continues to insist on cutting conservation programs that actually have been proven effective for the land and appreciated by farmers. We have wasted a lot of conservation money, but we also have done a lot of good with it at the margins and especially with the Conservation Reserve Program. The most recent speciousness is an argument that conservation programs hold back acres that would otherwise go to beginning young farmers. Which beginning young farmers are those? The ones whose fathers already control a couple of thousand acres? They will say anything in Washington these days."
"'I had too many problems in the United States because I am Mexican,' he said. 'Too many Americans don't like us. Whatever the problem, they say Mexican, Mexican, Mexican. But it's African, Nicaraguan, Salvadoran. I work in the snow, in the hot, on the kill floor, in the welding shop. But too many Americans say, "Hey, wetback." This is no good. Mexicans go to the United States to work. That's it.'"
"We were immediate best friends. Everywhere you go you meet somebody from Iowa."
"When James Madison wrote the First Amendment to the Constitution, he had you in mind. The reporter is the cornerstone of an informed electorate and a functioning democracy. Tyranny prevails wherever the press is not free."
"We strive for accuracy. When you spot your mistake in the paper, it should make you want to retch. Really. This is a healthy neuroticism. Correct your errors prominently and your credibility will build. When you lose that nausea over a mistake, go be a shaman in India."
"Newspapering is the most fun you can have fully clothed. If you find writing is a chore after a while, you are in the wrong business."
"Get the news up front. Don't wander around. Get in and get out. Over-report and under-write. Write for readers and not other editors. Write as if you were telling your mother about it in the kitchen. When appropriate, make them cry."
"The best journalism is that which builds communities. You build your community by publicizing good deeds done, by reporting on the cheats and scoundrels and other politicians, by urging yourself and those around you to do better, by allowing dissenting voices to be heard, and by making certain that your town's issues are heard in Des Moines and Washington's. Use your power to build, and the newspaper will grow naturally."
"You can change the world through journalism. Tom Paine did it with Common Sense. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post did it with Watergate. Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams did it - with one brutal photo he started the end of the Vietnam War. That's the only good reason to get into this business. Because, when you're looking for a friend, remember that the dog can't read."
"It was the small-business owners who had the last word, and it was unexpectedly powerful. 'Everybody here's talking about being fair to the insurance companies - when have they been fair to us?' Mr. Cullen said. 'Why do we have to be fair to them? It just incenses me when people talk that way. These people are legal thieves with antitrust protection, and we want to treat them with kid gloves. It drives me nuts!'"
November 15, 2025
Thanks, Mr. Cullen.
May 23, 2024
A knack for understanding what is ACTUALLY happening in his town before it is fully known, Art Cullen holds an allegiance to the land and to the people around him which, to no surprise, results in what must be one of the final TRULY embarrassed newspapers.
November 3, 2019
I really enjoyed the town history and people's stories that were portrayed in the book. Excellent writing kept the flow of the book moving, similar to the pace of individual human lives changing and moving on constantly while somehow staying the same personalitywise.
April 28, 2019
Every Iowan should read this book. So much history (no, Amana is not the home of the Amish but otherwise pretty much right one) and insight. Sincerity and wisdom.
October 5, 2021
I left Storm Lake as soon as I graduated from high school 50 years ago. My family gradually left one by one over the next 30 years. Once my parents moved away, I had no reason to return. My unfortunate updates of the town were limited to disastrous reports of how bad things had gotten.
It is nice to see through a slightly different lens as far as the town goes, however, little seems to have changed in the agricultural aspects in the last half century. The disaster that continues to befall the lake is not at all new. It is almost unfortunate that they found a use for the huge pile of rich soil that came out via dredging by creating a sort of resort. That reclaimed topsoil should have never gotten into the water in the first place, but at least now the city fathers can pretend they are doing something good. I suppose when the lake fills in completely, they will proudly point to all the new land they can exploit.
As far as newspapers go, this reinforces the vital role that I believe independent, locally-owned small town newspapers fill. Without the free press to dig and report, too many crooked politicians and “upright citizens” got by with suspect behavior as I grew up. Everyone “knew” what was going on in the absence of a paper willing to print news, even though that knowledge was usually false rumors. I am proud to say that I subscribe to about half-dozen, small circulation, local papers, although not the Times.
As far as the writing style, I was not put off by the conversational tone. It was in keeping with the way we used to talk over the giant cinnamon rolls at the Reckoff Oil Diner on Flindt Drive.
It is nice to see through a slightly different lens as far as the town goes, however, little seems to have changed in the agricultural aspects in the last half century. The disaster that continues to befall the lake is not at all new. It is almost unfortunate that they found a use for the huge pile of rich soil that came out via dredging by creating a sort of resort. That reclaimed topsoil should have never gotten into the water in the first place, but at least now the city fathers can pretend they are doing something good. I suppose when the lake fills in completely, they will proudly point to all the new land they can exploit.
As far as newspapers go, this reinforces the vital role that I believe independent, locally-owned small town newspapers fill. Without the free press to dig and report, too many crooked politicians and “upright citizens” got by with suspect behavior as I grew up. Everyone “knew” what was going on in the absence of a paper willing to print news, even though that knowledge was usually false rumors. I am proud to say that I subscribe to about half-dozen, small circulation, local papers, although not the Times.
As far as the writing style, I was not put off by the conversational tone. It was in keeping with the way we used to talk over the giant cinnamon rolls at the Reckoff Oil Diner on Flindt Drive.
October 5, 2018
Art Cullen has been afflicting the comfortable for more than 30 years. I know because I’ve been reading his editorials in the Storm Lake Times since volume 1 number 1. “Storm Lake: A Chronicle of Change, Resilience, and Hope from a Heartland Newspaper” is Cullen’s first book, a book he wrote after winning the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. If you’re wondering if this book is for you, let me give you a list of audiences who should be reading “Storm Lake.”
This book is for you if:
* You care about the water you drink, the food you eat, and the planet you inhabit.
* You care about corporate influence on your life and the lives of your family, friends and neighbors.
* You care about immigration.
* You want to hear about a small town that has been transformed by the influx of new residents from all over the world.
* You love really good writing....not formulaic writing, but writing that will remind you of the stylized writing of some of the great writers like Twain and Keillor.
* You love a good story well told.
* You care about family and like reading about others and their family stories.
* You love to pull for the underdog.
* You care about good journalism and you don’t think that the news media are the “enemy of the people.”
Cullen’s book is a gift to America, a gift that will inform you, entertain you, and pull at your heartstrings. If you are afflicted, it will comfort you. Buy it. Read it. Tell your friends about it.
This book is for you if:
* You care about the water you drink, the food you eat, and the planet you inhabit.
* You care about corporate influence on your life and the lives of your family, friends and neighbors.
* You care about immigration.
* You want to hear about a small town that has been transformed by the influx of new residents from all over the world.
* You love really good writing....not formulaic writing, but writing that will remind you of the stylized writing of some of the great writers like Twain and Keillor.
* You love a good story well told.
* You care about family and like reading about others and their family stories.
* You love to pull for the underdog.
* You care about good journalism and you don’t think that the news media are the “enemy of the people.”
Cullen’s book is a gift to America, a gift that will inform you, entertain you, and pull at your heartstrings. If you are afflicted, it will comfort you. Buy it. Read it. Tell your friends about it.
January 26, 2022
I spent several months in Iowa for the 2020 Caucuses, and the entire summer in CD-4, Steve King's old congressional district. While I was in a city/area a bit more to the south, I experienced the small town life that was advertised to East Coast me as quaint and little-to-do. That summer was one of the most important that I had ever experienced, and my understanding of rural America is significantly better because of it. That was summer 2019.
In the winter of 2022, I was locked away in a cabin in Shenandoah in negative degrees. I picked up this book and thought it would be a fun read. Instead I was transported back to that summer, where I grew close to the rich history of Iowa and it's proud citizens. I hungrily devoured the chapters on climate change and agricultural woes, remembering all the flood damage of those hot, hot months. My stomach growled at the mention of Casey's Pizza (breakfast pizza specifically), and wished for a Hy-Vee or Fairway to open up close to me.
Art Cullen does a masterful job of bringing vibrant history of what is commonly referred to as a "flyover state" or "flat state" (that last honor should honestly go to Kansas). I finished this book in 24 hours and immediately started looking at flights to visit the state again, returning this time as a reverent supporter of the state and it's people.
And Ja-Mar's Fried Chicken in Fort Dodge, which is the best I've ever had.
In the winter of 2022, I was locked away in a cabin in Shenandoah in negative degrees. I picked up this book and thought it would be a fun read. Instead I was transported back to that summer, where I grew close to the rich history of Iowa and it's proud citizens. I hungrily devoured the chapters on climate change and agricultural woes, remembering all the flood damage of those hot, hot months. My stomach growled at the mention of Casey's Pizza (breakfast pizza specifically), and wished for a Hy-Vee or Fairway to open up close to me.
Art Cullen does a masterful job of bringing vibrant history of what is commonly referred to as a "flyover state" or "flat state" (that last honor should honestly go to Kansas). I finished this book in 24 hours and immediately started looking at flights to visit the state again, returning this time as a reverent supporter of the state and it's people.
And Ja-Mar's Fried Chicken in Fort Dodge, which is the best I've ever had.
March 12, 2022
Art Cullen and his brother started a newspaper in Storm Lake, a town of 12 thousand located in northwest Iowa. His memoir traces the demographic and political changes occurring in that part of the state and in the town of Storm Lake itself. He writes of growing up there, meeting his wife, coming back there after living elsewhere, and the difficulties of basing one’s livelihood on a small town newspaper these days. He also traces the loss of the family farm, the farm crisis of the 1980s, and the effect of big agri-business. Distinguishing between horizontal agriculture and vertical agriculture, he says that the trend these days is vertical: one corporation controls everything from planting to raising livestock to processing to sales. The result, according to Cullen, is destroying the land itself.
Most communities in northwest Iowa have reacted to the change by losing population, growing angry, in that anger supporting politicians who are demagogues, rejecting long-range environmental solutions, and scapegoating immigrants. Storm Lake, on the other hand, is an island in northwest Iowa, not only welcoming but integrating immigrants, exploring conservation, and making room for farms and businesses that don’t give in to the monopoly of big agri-business.
Cullen won a Pulitzer for his weekly columns, often focused on community and the environment. His book was a good primer for me, a reminder of my own roots in rural northwestern Illinois, a sign of hope in what is often a sea of insanity.
Most communities in northwest Iowa have reacted to the change by losing population, growing angry, in that anger supporting politicians who are demagogues, rejecting long-range environmental solutions, and scapegoating immigrants. Storm Lake, on the other hand, is an island in northwest Iowa, not only welcoming but integrating immigrants, exploring conservation, and making room for farms and businesses that don’t give in to the monopoly of big agri-business.
Cullen won a Pulitzer for his weekly columns, often focused on community and the environment. His book was a good primer for me, a reminder of my own roots in rural northwestern Illinois, a sign of hope in what is often a sea of insanity.
August 26, 2019
This book is a love letter to Iowa, specifically, small town Iowa, Storm Lake in the north western part of Iowa. Most of us love Iowa, only in the rear view mirror as we leave it and really give it little thought, but it is home to small town farmers, and large conglomerate farmers (sadly, who have taken over), meatpacking houses and their immigrant employees, not only from Mexico, but Myanmar, Thailand and others who take a chance coming so far seeking a better life. Storm Lake has embraced them and the diversity they bring to the community. Iowa is not without its problems, but without town newspapers to ask questions on both the local and state level, there is no hope for improvement in the status quo. I understand now why the presidential candidates for either party spend time in Iowa (I found the chapter on politics in Iowa especially difficult to read knowing how they favored Trump and stories of Steve King and his promotion of nationalism made me angry). Don't write off Iowa, their small town values echo values everywhere in our country.
August 2, 2022
What a beautiful testament to small town Iowa, to the farms and fields, to the workers and immigrants, to the tension between the little man and big ag, and to the importance of community. There's a lot of lessons to learn from Cullen's writings, delivered in beautiful little vignettes like feature pieces in a newspaper. A couple of the early chapters felt a bit stilted, but maybe that was just me getting used to his more journalistic prose encased in a book. But the back 2/3rds of the book were gorgeously written, full of heart and hope, and made me proud to be an Iowan knowing people like Cullen exist. I hope that Iowans can turn this ship around, taking the reins back from the big corporations, before it's too late. I guess we'll have to keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best. Well worth reading if you are from Iowa or are interested in reading about a community filled with people from all over the world (Mexico, Hmong, Sudan), trying to stake their claim among the cornstalks.
March 14, 2019
I was so happy to revisit my home state and so glad that an Iowa native, who's edited his town's newspaper for over 20 years won the Pulitzer Prize for tackling the elephant in the room - Big Ag's role in Iowa (and national) politics. This was a great primer on what makes Storm Lake so special, for those who've never been there (my roots are on the eastern side of the state, so I'm included in this), that helps ground where his Pulitzer winning editorials came from. Cullen showcases the best Iowa has to offer while not shying away from its troubles.
As a member of a family where both sides have farmed (and continue to farm) in Iowa for at least five generations, my reactions were too personal to get into much detail evaluating this one. I'll just say that I wish the Cullens, The Storm Lake Times, and the town of Storm Lake only the best.
As a member of a family where both sides have farmed (and continue to farm) in Iowa for at least five generations, my reactions were too personal to get into much detail evaluating this one. I'll just say that I wish the Cullens, The Storm Lake Times, and the town of Storm Lake only the best.
August 17, 2020
As someone who has lived in Iowa for 10+ years and never really got a sense that I understood the culture of the place, this book felt like a revelation. Art writes in that particular way of the local newspaper columnist: sharp, unpretentious and distinctively provincial. Often it feels like our consciousness has been warped by the pulling of our attention towards the national media. This book is a testament to the spirit of the Iowa farmer to stand firm and drag that focus back to the ground underneath his or her own own feet, one hilarious turn of phrase, one slice of homespun profundity, or one perspective changing article at a time.
Maybe my biggest endorsement for this book was that my first act upon finishing it was to walk out my front door and buy a real ink and pulp newspaper covering what’s happening right around me. You should consider doing it too.
Maybe my biggest endorsement for this book was that my first act upon finishing it was to walk out my front door and buy a real ink and pulp newspaper covering what’s happening right around me. You should consider doing it too.
October 11, 2022
Although I wondered for the first 100+ pages if this book was a collection of essays or editorials re-visited, it became more as I read on. I worked with three Iowa newspapers and closely identified with the struggles of the various occupations and the overall business model described here. I thank the Pulitzer organization for rewarding smaller news organizations, like Storm Lake, IA and Charleston, SC for their outstanding work. Journalism in small markets is incredibly hard yet exceedingly important to keep all the local institutions, from the judiciary and law enforcement to the countless county and city boards and commissions on their toes, and, hopefully more honest. Towns without journalists like Art Cullen are poorer and have lower quality of life. I know because I live in one of those towns without an Art Cullen.
And Barb, thank you for loaning me this book!
And Barb, thank you for loaning me this book!
August 28, 2023
I only read it because it was lent to me unbidden, and I still managed to like it less than expected. Cullen says in the introduction that he originally laughed off the idea of writing a book because he as a columnist constitutionally didn't think he could write more than 700 words, and it turns out he was right. Though he can't really write less than 700 words, either, with strings of sentences that have no rhythm, don't coherently flow from one to the next, and frequently do things like say "mouth" of a river when meaning "source." Almost as bad is the banality of the content; most of it is utterly vacuous small-town affirmation, broken only by tendentious "if only politicians did what I want, they'd win all the elections" bluster. I guess it's good that I read it since it has come up elsewhere, but I sure wouldn't recommend it.
May 27, 2019
I consider Storm Lake my hometown having grown up there from third through eighth grade (1970-1976). Many of the early references to St. Mary's (my church, but not my school since I was a "public school kid"), the lake, the college, and the people are part of my story. Cullen's call to action to embrace immigrates makes me proud to be from Storm Lake. Too many people think of Northwest Iowa and think of the horrendous congressman called King. Those of us that call parts of Northwest Iowa home or a hometown, know he does not represent the heart of the heartland.
If you are from Iowa, read this book. If you are from the United States, read this book. If you care about the future of journalism, small towns, and your fellow humans, read this book.
If you are from Iowa, read this book. If you are from the United States, read this book. If you care about the future of journalism, small towns, and your fellow humans, read this book.
November 18, 2019
You should read this book if:
You’ve ever lived in Iowa
You care about our land and water
You care about immigration
You care about communities and “regular people”
You care about honest journalism
And if you don’t care about those things, you should really read this book!
So many quotable lines. It’s a book to be read slowly and taken in thoughtfully. There were many times that I had to set it down and stare at the wall for a few minutes to let his words sink in. Let this book sink in for you! A beautiful, powerful voice, with some messages that might be difficult to hear. A writer well-deserving of the Pulitzer he helped earn for his hometown newspaper for standing up to big corporations who put profit over everything else.
You’ve ever lived in Iowa
You care about our land and water
You care about immigration
You care about communities and “regular people”
You care about honest journalism
And if you don’t care about those things, you should really read this book!
So many quotable lines. It’s a book to be read slowly and taken in thoughtfully. There were many times that I had to set it down and stare at the wall for a few minutes to let his words sink in. Let this book sink in for you! A beautiful, powerful voice, with some messages that might be difficult to hear. A writer well-deserving of the Pulitzer he helped earn for his hometown newspaper for standing up to big corporations who put profit over everything else.
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