Questions about love, sex or relationships can be submitted to dearkiki@littlevillagemag.com, or anonymously using this form. Questions may be edited for clarity and length, and may appear either in print or online. Hi Kiki, I’m a 25 year old female and have never been in a relationship. Honestly, I don’t know if I have ever wanted to be. But also, maybe I just tell myself that because I haven’t? I’m not sure, but I do know that I’m scared of vulnerability and letting someone get to know me. In my head, I can’t understand how someone could like me for me and also want to be intima ..read more

While there were empty seats in the house at this March 22, 2015 game, Carver Hawkeye-Arena was packed to the gills 30 years earlier. — Phil Roeder/Flickr For most of her 62 years, “nobody cared about women’s basketball,” Lisa Bluder has said, especially when compared to the phenomenon it is today. Athletic scholarships were practically nonexistent before 1972. Attendance could range from a few dozen to a few hundred. Uniforms and facilities were often less than ideal. But the sport still had moments of mainstream success — brief but sure signs women’s hoops would someday arrive — thanks to tr ..read more

Mandi Remington stands ready to help at CCAN-Con 2020. — courtesy of CCAN I am writing to express my enthusiastic support for Mandi Remington as a candidate for the Johnson County Board of Supervisors. Mandi’s dedication to social justice in our community over the years has earned my respect and endorsement in the upcoming June 4 Democratic Primary Election. Mandi Remington embodies authenticity in both her words and actions, drawing from her own life experiences that are often underrepresented in local government. As a single mother raising three children on a modest income, a survivor of dom ..read more

Nathan Parriott outside Daydreams Comics, May 4, 2024. — Paul Brennan/Little Village Daydreams Comics was crowded on Saturday afternoon, which wasn’t a surprise. It was Free Comic Book Day (FCBD), a nationwide annual event that happens on the first Saturday of May, and this year it fell on May 4, a day celebrated by Star Wars fans every year.  “I should have ordered more,” Daydreams owner Nathan Parriott said, talking about a special FCBD Star Wars comic. “They were pretty much all gone by 11.”  FCBD started 22 years ago. Daydreams has been around even longer. Michael Zeadow, th ..read more

The Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program (IWP) have long brought writers of international stature to the Greatest Small City for the Arts. Many of these writers are Nigerian, and include recent workshop graduates Adedayo Agarau and Romeo Oriogun, recent IWP participant Wana Udobang, and (through the School of Journalism and Mass Communications) Munachim Amah, the administrator of the prestigious Afritondo Short Story Prize. This wealth of talent bespeaks a global trend, what Yogita Goyal has called a renaissance of “Afropolitan” literature in Engl ..read more

Video still of fenced off section of “Greenwood Pond: Double Site,” April 2024. “Greenwood Pond: Double Site,” the large-scale work of public art that has been part of Greenwood Park in Des Moines since 1996, will remain in place following the decision of the federal judge on Friday to issue a preliminary injunction stopping the Des Moines Art Center from dismantling and removing its wooden structures.  The large-scale installation features curving wooden and concrete walkways and other features creating a double-sided elliptical form on Greenwood Pond that echoes the curve of the sh ..read more

Mandi Remington (left) and Laura Bergus, an at-large member of the Iowa City Council, in a photo posted to the “Mandi for City Council” Facebook page.By Nick and Laura Bergus, Iowa City On June 4, we have the opportunity to elect someone who leads from her values, not her ego. That’s why we are voting for Mandi Remington for Johnson County Supervisor in the Democratic primary, and urge you to join us. If you’ve watched a Board of Supervisors meeting in the last couple of years, you’ve witnessed our elected leaders be, at times, selfish, petty, rude, dismissive, derisive, and purposefully obtus ..read more

This comic was originally published in Little Village’s May 2024 issue ..read more

City Student for Palestine stage a protest at City High in Iowa City on May 3, 2024. — Emily Rundell/Little Village Hours before a three-day-long protest organized by Iowa City Students for Justice in Palestine began on the Pentacrest Friday, a similar demonstration was already underway two miles to the east.  Even before classes began at City High on Friday morning, City Students for Palestine (not affiliated with the group above) were building a temporary encampment with tents on the school’s front lawn and posting signs for their day-long School Strike.  “This is not a protest aga ..read more

Christina Bohannan speaks at the opening of her Iowa City campaign office on April 12, 2024. — Sid Peterson/Little Village Democrats Christina Bohannan and Ryan Melton are campaigning for Congress on opposite sides of the state and in very different districts, but they have one thing in common — firsthand experience running for the U.S. House. In 2022, Bohannan challenged the Republican incumbent in Iowa’s eastern-most congressional district, the 1st, while Melton ran in the sprawling 4th District, which covers western Iowa. The November 2022 election was a disaster for the Iowa Democratic Pa ..read more