Storm Lake: A Chronicle of Change, Resilience, and Hope from a Heartland Newspaper

by Art Cullen

(Viking Books, October 2018)

When Art Cullen won the Pulitzer in editorial writing in 2017 for taking on big corporate agri-industry whose chemicals were poisoning the local groundwater, it was a coup on many counts: a strike for the wellbeing of a rural community, a triumph for that endangered species, a family-run weekly newspaper The Storm Lake Times, and a salute to the special talents of a fierce and formidable native son – Cullen.

In this candid and timely book, Cullen describes how rural America has changed dramatically over his career, as seen from the vantage point of a farming and meatpacking town of 15,000 in Northwest Iowa. Politics, agriculture, the environment, and immigration all feed into a book that also chronicles a resilient newspaper, as much a survivor as its town. Continue reading →