Josie Fischels
Arts & Culture ReporterExpertise: Performance art, visual art, Iowa life
Education: The University of Iowa
Favorite Iowa Destination: Dunnings Springs, Decorah
Experience:
- Covered local and statewide arts, news, and lifestyle features for <i>The Daily Iowan</i>, <i>The Denver Post</i>, NPR and currently for IPR
- Has written features on Iowans participating in the Hollywood writers’ strike, the nation’s largest historic theatre backdrop collection – housed in Iowa, the reopening of the African American Museum of Iowa and an ‘inside-the-culture’ feature on local drag kings, among others
- Is an award-winning reporter, including a retrospective of Iowa’s first poet laureate, Marvin Bell, following his death in 2021
- Writes regularly for IPR’s internationally award-winning newsletters
- Covered the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, climate and the Kabul takeover by the Taliban in 2021 for NPR’s news desk
- Served as an editor and mentor for multiple projects with NPR’s Next Generation Radio
- Created IPR’s weekly news quiz and launched IPR’s TikTok (follow us!)
My Latest Stories
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A survey in Des Moines and surrounding cities found that residents overwhelmingly preferred trick-or-treating to occur on Halloween instead of the night before, on Beggars' Night. -
Marching bands from across the state are currently competing against one another with high-energy spectacles, complete with props, costumes, sets and intricate sound systems. -
Three Iowa City West high schoolers founded a book club that reads some of the country's most frequently banned books after a state law removing books with sexual content was signed in 2023. Two years later, many of the books have been reshelved and parts of the law can't be enforced. -
Baker & Taylor, one of the nation's largest book suppliers, announced that it will shut down by the end of the year. The vendor had a contract with the State of Iowa. -
This year, Winterset's annual Covered Bridge Festival is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the film, The Bridges of Madison County. -
The student's research found that the statue, which had been part of the Mount Vernon college's art collection for over a century, had been taken from the Etowah Indian Mounds in Georgia in 1886. It was returned to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation on Sept. 30. -
The performers are embarking on their first-ever headline theater tour, "Knockout," which will arrive at Waukee's Vibrant Music Hall on Oct. 11. -
The performances, presented by the Iowa Labor History Society, aim to highlight Darrow's fights for workers' rights, classroom freedom and justice — issues that remain at the heart of today's political debates. -
Horror author Ira Rat hopes to give Iowa writers in the genre a space to connect with the inaugural One of Us horror fiction convention. -
The community theater was founded in Grant Wood's studio in 1925 and has grown to become Iowa's largest nonprofit producing theater.
