Iowa City author Moss dies at 54

Posted on Oct 14, 2009 by Cindy Hadish.

Barbara Robinette Moss is shown in her Iowa City home in January 2006. Behind Moss is a piece of her artwork. (The Gazette)

A former Iowa City author and artist will be remembered for the many lives she touched through her books, artwork and teaching.

Barbara Robinette Moss died Friday of lung cancer in an Overland Park, Kansas, hospital said her husband, Duane DeRaad. She was 54.

Moss wrote “Change Me Into Zeus’s Daughter,” the book choice for Linn Area Reads 2006, followed by “Fierce,” a memoir about being a single mother.

“She was an amazing woman,” DeRaad said from the couple’s home in Leawood, Kan. “She deeply affected everyone that she was in touch with.”

DeRaad said he has been hearing from friends of Moss throughout the country, “and many say, ‘she changed my life.’”

Moss is survived by DeRaad, 66, her son, Jason, of Lee’s Summit, Mo., and granddaughter, Maren.

Moss recounts her impoverished childhood with an alcoholic father, devoted mother and seven siblings in rural Alabama in “Zeus’s Daughter.” She was writing her third book when she died.

Moss began writing in graduate school at Drake University in Des Moines.

She moved to Iowa City in 1993, where she taught at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. The couple moved to Kansas in 2006.

Moss also lectured across the country and participated in over 100 juried art exhibitions.

One of her shows opens today in Oklahoma City.

Ann Scholl Rinehart, 46, of Bertram, a senior writer at Stamats, said the two became friends after Rinehart called her for advice about the book she was writing.

Although busy with the book she had just released, Moss read what Rinehart started.

“She called the following week and said, ‘I think you have something here,’” Rinehart wrote in an e-mail to The Gazette. “To me, that story is indicative of Barbara’s huge heart. If fans wrote her, she wrote back. She was always giving of herself — to her family, her friends, her fans.”

When Rinehart complained about not being published, Moss wrote back saying: “It’s not publishing that matters; it’s not writing that matters. What matters is feeling alive while writing, washing dishes, driving, etc. Writing just gives you a solid place to land some of that God energy that is already within you.”

Moss’s funeral will be Friday in Anniston, Ala. A celebration of life is set for Nov. 15 in Kansas City, Mo.