Courtney Crowder is the Iowa Columnist and a senior writer at the Des Moines Register and USA Today. A Headliner Award winner, two-time Livingston Award finalist and DART Award finalist, Crowder’s work is distinctive for telling human stories with an investigative eye and a narrative touch. She recently expanded into multimedia production, writing and co-directing the award-winning “SHIFT: The RAGBRAI Documentary” and researching and hosting an episode of “Proof,” one of Apple’s most popular food podcasts, on America’s first butter sculptor.

As the pandemic raged, Crowder led the Register’s efforts to document the names and stories of Iowans who died of COVID through the “Iowa Mourns” obituary project and penned a seven-part series, “Inside COVID’s Siege,” after spending weeks embedded in an ICU.  She co-founded the Des Moines Storytellers Project, a live storytelling event series, and co-launched the Register’s new Off Hours entertainment vertical. She believes in coaxing out the universal truth in people’s stories and knows that if you dig deep enough into anyone’s stories, you’ll find everyone’s story.

Find her work and more at DesMoinesRegister.com.