Pies have transformed Beth M. Howard’s life, many times. And the passionate Ottumwa, Iowa native – who graduated from high school in Davenport – is returning to the Quad Cities this weekend to show her film about this round symbol of hope, healing and the Hawkeye State.
“PIEOWA: A Piece of America,” a 2025 feature documentary, will be shown at the Bettendorf Public Library at 2 p.m., Saturday, May 30, followed by a Q & A with Howard (and free pie, of course). Seating is limited and reservations through the library website are recommended. The event is free, and pie will be served. Moviegoers also are welcome to bring a pie to share.
The film celebrates the many ways pie is woven into Iowa’s (and America’s) culture, the lengths people will go to for a slice, and how this humble pastry can bake the world a better place.
“PIEOWA”’s accolades include Best Food Film, 2025 San Antonio Film Festival; Audience Award, 2025 Silicon Beach Film Festival; and Award of Merit, 2025 Impact DOCS Awards. The 76-minute documentary features comedian (and Iowa native) Tom Arnold, NPR economics correspondent Scott Horsley (NPR = No Pie Refused), the Better Homes & Gardens food editor, church ladies, State Fair competitors, food historians, bike riders, pie shop owners, and more.
The L.A. Times called it: “A soulful slice of Americana.” Little Village magazine said it was the “taste-good, feel-good film of the year.” Kyle Munson, former Des Moines Register columnist, wrote it is a “film to remind us that what unites us is stronger than what divides us.”
Howard – the 63-year-old producer, director, and editor of “PIEOWA” -- is the author of four books, including “Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Pie”; the cookbook, “Ms. American Pie,” and her latest release, “World Piece: A Pie Baker’s Global Quest for Peace, Love, and Understanding” (2022).
Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Real Simple, and Country Living, among many other publications. She has given a TEDx Talk on the healing powers of pie, and she is a regular commentator for her local NPR affiliate, Tri States Public Radio in Macomb, Illinois.
From 2010 to 2014, she lived in the iconic American Gothic House in Eldon, Iowa (subject of the famous 1930 Grant Wood painting), where she ran the Pitchfork Pie Stand. In 2015, she embarked on a round-the-world journey teaching pie classes in nine countries to promote world peace.
As a widow who understands grief and the importance of building community, Howard responded to the Sandy Hook mass shooting in 2012 by organizing 60 volunteers to bake 250 pies for the residents of Newtown, Connecticut. Her story has been featured on CBS This Morning, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, BBC, NPR, the Hallmark Channel, the History Channel, the Los Angeles Times, Forbes, Reader’s Digest, and more.
She divides her time between an Iowa farm and Los Angeles, and continues to write, bake pie, and advocate for a kinder, more unified world.
Howard’s website says: “I also consider myself a pie evangelist after experiencing the myriad ways that pie has not only saved me but has made the world a better place.”
In her 2012 book, “Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Pie,” Howard wrote: “If it wasn’t for banana cream pie, I never would have been born. If my mom hadn’t made my dad that pie, the one with the creamy vanilla pudding, loaded with sliced bananas and covered in a mound of whipped cream, the one that prompted him to propose to her, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Pie is accessible, affordable, all-encompassing. Pie is meant for sharing. Pie connects people,” she has said. “Pie knows no cultural or political boundaries. Pie makes people happy. And happy people make the world a better place. That’s why the world needs more pie.”
Filming across Iowa in 2023
Howard filmed “PIEOWA” across the state in 2023, and most of the two years in making the film was spent editing all her footage, she said Wednesday, May 27 in an interview with WVIK. She didn’t know how to make a film until she started this project at age 61.
“I like to encourage people and show them that it’s never too late to try something new or pursue a dream,” Howard said. “You can’t overthink it, you just have to commit and then learn everything you can to make it happen. In my case, I talked to as many filmmakers as I could and watched hours and hours of YouTube tutorials!”
The documentary filmed at the Iowa State Fair, and four stops along the 50th anniversary route of RAGBRAI, the famous bike ride across Iowa (that Howard has participated in three complete rides), which that year ended in Davenport.
At the State Fair, naturally, they serve pie on a stick, including pecan pie on a stick, rolled in bacon and dipped in caramel, she noted.
“Everybody, when they see that or hear that segment, they laugh, you know, they're like, that's like so over the top,” Howard said. “Yeah, it's pretty decadent. I had a bite of it. It's very sweet. So, yeah, they do have fried pie on a stick and pecan pie on a stick.”
“The pie contest at the state fair, when people bring pies, they have live judging, which a lot of fairs don't,” she said. “And it's kind of become a big deal because of that. And they get hundreds of pies. And then the pie-eating contest is, just one slice and you have to have your hands behind your back. And it's like a lot of kids, it's adults, it's really cute. It's one slice, so it's not gluttony.”
June 13 will be the first anniversary of the premiere screening of “PIEOWA,” which was in Henning, Minn. (three hours north of Minneapolis), where Howard’s friend runs an art center. Her first Iowa showing was in Fort Madison (near where she lives in Donnellson), and then it ran for seven weeks in Des Moines at the Varsity Cinema. In the Quad Cities, the doc was shown for free at the Figge Art Museum on May 9, 2026.
An Ottumwa native, Howard actually went to Sudlow Junior High and Assumption High School in Davenport. She has fond memories of Bishop’s Buffet, which was well-known for their pies.
“We loved to go there and have their chocolate cream pie. You know, as a kid, I ate there a lot,” Howard said. “A lot of people ask me, how come you don't have Bishop’s in there? I go, well, obviously it's been closed for a while. And also I didn't find any archival footage to use, so there was no point in really trying to highlight that. If there was nothing even available to show, so in film versus a book, in film, you have to be able to see the stuff.”
She ended up living at the “American Gothic” house (from 2010 to 2014), since Howard came back to Iowa a year after her husband passed away unexpectedly and “I was still grieving and I wanted to be somewhere grounding on the one-year anniversary of his death,” she recalled. “I came back to Iowa and I hadn't been back here in years and you know, my whole family had all moved away, so I didn't really have a big reason to come back, but I just had this feeling of nostalgia.
“So I came back and I was visiting Ottumwa where I was born. And then after that I was driving down the highway actually toward Davenport, and I was like, wait a minute, I never knew that the ‘American Gothic’ house was just outside of Ottumwa,” Howard said. “I decided to stop and take a look. And then I just fell in love with the house and I found out it was for rent.
"It was not planned; I didn't even know the house was there. And I just thought, okay, well, I was pretty nimble with my life choices then. You know, my husband had died, I didn't have kids, so I decided on a whim to move in.
“And I ended up staying four years. And I started the Pitchfork Pie Stand while I was there, because what else was I going to do?” she said. “It was really fun. I met so many people. I really did love that house.”
Owned by the State Historical Society of Iowa, Howard only had to pay $250 a month rent; after she left, no one else has been able to live there.
Finding a new life of pie
She really started getting into making pies in 2001, after working at a dot-com job in San Francisco and she got tired of sitting in front of a computer.
“And I just told my bosses, I want to go work with my hands. I want to go do something tactile,” Howard recalled. “I want to do something like make pie. And then, crazy enough, that's what I ended up doing. I wasn't expecting to do that. It was just a throwaway comment. And then, so I was living on the West Coast, and I moved back down to Los Angeles, and there was a little gourmet cafe that had just opened in Malibu, and they were supposed to be known for their pie, and they didn't have any when I went in. So I said I would make it for them. Why do I say these things? And then I ended up working there for a year making pies.
"And that was where everything really solidified for me in terms of this pie journey. And then I started a blog, ‘The World Needs More Pie,’ and I was always looking for pie stories.”
Howard said her favorite pie depends on the season, when a particular fruit is in season.
“If I am forced to answer that question of what my favorite pie is, I say apple, because it's the one I don't get tired of,” she said. “But it's not forced, then I say, it depends on the season. Like right now, strawberry rhubarb. And then ask me in August, and I will tell you without a doubt, it's peach crumble. So, yeah, just kind of goes with the season.”
“Rhubarb is growing right now. And then the peaches aren't really ready until August,” Howard said. “That's when you get the Missouri peaches, the Colorado peaches, the Georgia peaches. There's discussion of which ones are the best. I'm like, whatever is ripe is the best.”
Howard years ago connected with film and TV star Tom Arnold (another Ottumwa native), since their grandmothers were close friends.
“I had actually written a TV pilot for a comedy about living in the ‘American Gothic’ house. So I was trying to get him attached to it, and I did,” she recalled. “His manager put us in touch, and I went to his house in L.A. and brought him pie. And we talked, and turns out our grandmothers were really good friends. And so it's like, now he feels like family because when your grandmas are good friends, we might as well be cousins, you know?
“It was this really nice familiarity we had with each other. And he does love pie,” Howard said. “So then when I was editing, because I had his number and I'd been to his house when I was editing the film and I was editing that segment on the Canteen Lunch in the Alley, a diner in Ottumwa, I reached out to him and I said, Tom, I'm having a really hard time making the segment interesting because these ladies were not very dynamic on camera. They were very sweet.”
Arnold agreed to be on screen for an interview about the Ottumwa diner, which has been around since 1927.
“When I was a kid, their pie was so good. But of course, that pie maker has passed away since, and it's hard to keep a pie maker somehow,” Howard said. “So they have a kind of hit or miss with the pies. But you know what's really good? There's their milkshakes. Which reminds me, when I come to town, when I come to Bettendorf this weekend, I will be making a stop at Whitey's. Guarantee I'll be going to Whitey's.”
Another place in “PIEOWA” is a shop called Try Pie in Waterloo, and they have a pie shake, she noted. “There must be 2,000 calories in it. And I don't care. It was so I had one and it was huge and it was so good. And they throw like a little mini pie and one of their beautiful, yummy crumble toppings, fresh berries, butter crust. And they throw that in there and it's just God knows how much. I don't even want to know how many calories.”
For the past 12 years, Howard has lived on a farm in Donnellson, Iowa (southeast corner of the state), about 73 miles south of Iowa City, and usually spends winters in L.A.
Giving a “piece” a chance
Howard promotes pie as the ultimate peace offering, and an instant, heavenly bond among people.
“When you hear people talk about pie, it's with like this sort of longing, this nostalgia and a time that reminds you of love and comfort,” she said. “My grandmother used to make pie every Sunday, we had pie. That kind of thing. So I think it's about the memory of it and that it's really hearty. It's got more substance than cake. It's like fresh fruit off the tree in your backyard. I don't know. There's something really homey about it. And it's never really perfect.
“It's round. It's meant to be shared. It's just the way it takes time to make it,” Howard said. “It's so closely associated with grandmothers. We love our grandmothers, right? So it's just, there is an element of love about it, and it's pretty hard to define that in a sentence, I've found. But it's comfort.
"And how it was traditionally served at funerals or potlucks or family dinners, Thanksgiving. So, all the things associated with it are really positive and feel good and comforting.”
People’s eyes “light up when they see pie, even more so than cake,” she said, noting pies are perennial favorites for birthdays. “And certainly, you know, cookies and brownies don't evoke that same kind of emotional response.”
“PIEOWA” also will be shown at the Aledo Rhubarb Festival, June 5-6 at 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., and June 7 at 6 p.m. at the Aledo Opera House, and June 16 at the DeWitt Opera House.
To see a trailer on YouTube, click HERE.
For more information about Howard’s world of pie, visit her blog (“The World Needs More Pie”) HERE.
This story was produced by WVIK, Quad Cities NPR. We rely on financial support from our listeners and readers to provide coverage of the issues that matter to the Quad Cities region and beyond. As someone who values the content created by WVIK's news department, please consider making a financial contribution to support our work.
