Author, Filmmaker, Pie Baker
Beth M. Howard is an author, blogger, radio commentator, and documentary filmmaker. She is also known as “the pie lady” after living in the American Gothic House in Eldon, Iowa, where from 2010 to 2014 she ran the Pitchfork Pie Stand. She is the author of four books: World Piece: A Pie Baker’s Global Quest for Peace, Love, and Understanding; Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Pie; the cookbook, Ms. American Pie: Buttery Good Pie Recipes and Bold Tales from the American Gothic House; and Hausfrau Honeymoon: Love, Language, and Other Misadventures in Germany. She has written for the New York Times, Real Simple, Country Living, and many other publications; she’s been featured on CNN, CBS This Morning, BBC, NPR, and more; and she has given a TEDx talk about the healing powers of pie. She is a regular commentator on Tri States Public. Her award-winning documentary film, PIEOWA: A PIECE OF AMERICA, was released in 2025. She divides her time between Iowa and Los Angeles.
FOR MORE INFO, head over to my main website, The World Needs More Pie.
Pieowa: A documentary in the baking
PIEOWA: A PIECE OF AMERICA is Beth’s documentary is about the ways pie is baked into the cultural fabric of Iowa — and America. For more details and screening dates, go to the PIEOWA page on my pie website. And sign up for my newsletter to get updates. You won’t want to miss this.
My latest book, World Piece, is featured in FORBES
World Piece: A Baker’s Global Quest for Peace, Love, and Understanding, my memoir about my round-the-world pie-making trip to promote goodwill and cultural understanding, has been getting great press. Check out the features in FORBES, Shondaland, Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper, and on Iowa Public Radio.
You can buy it in paperback or ebook on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and other sites — or from your local bookstore, which you can locate via Bookshop.org.
To read the first chapter, go to my World Piece page.
Ms. American Pie is now in paperback
If you like pie, you’ll love my cookbook, Ms. American Pie, now in paperback. Lighter in weight but packed with the same great recipes, photos, and essays, it makes a great gift. Or maybe your old one is so full of stains from using it so much you need a new one. Either way, it’s available now. Just in time for Thanksgiving — and for holiday gifts.
Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Pie
Making Piece is the story of how I turned to pie making after losing my husband, and how the journey led me back to my birthplace of Iowa and into the American Gothic House. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be hungry for pie.
“One of the best non-cookbook food books of 2012” — Serious Eats
“One of the best books of 2012” — San Francisco Book Review
“One unique, crazy-quilt, truly American tale of reinvention.” — Publishers Weekly
Hausfrau Honeymoon: Love, Laundry and Other Misadventures in Germany
Recognize this painting?
You know American Gothic by Grant Wood. But did you know the house in the painting is real? It’s in Eldon, Iowa, and I lived in it for four years, from 2010 to 2014. I stayed even after discovering 7-foot-long snakes also living in it! I ran the Pitchfork Pie Stand inside the house while, outside, tourists posed in front day and night, sometimes peering in my windows. How I ended up there is explained in my memoir, MAKING PIECE: A MEMOIR OF LOVE, LOSS AND PIE. And there are more stories in my pie cookbook, MS. AMERICAN PIE.
TEDx Talk: The Healing Power of Pie
FOR MORE…
Visit my main website, The World Needs More Pie, or follow me on my Facebook pie page