Heidi Stevens

Heidi Stevens is a former Chicago Tribune columnist.

A person reaches down to place flowers on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Star of late US singer-songwriter Dolly Parton in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles on Aug. 25, 2026. Dolly Parton, the American country music singer who rose from poverty in Tennessee to become a US cultural giant with hits like "Jolene" and "9 to 5," has died at 80, her family said on Aug. 25. (Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images/TNS)

Heidi Stevens: Dolly Parton narrated our lives and unlocked our humanity. We were lucky to live in her world.

August 28, 2026 at 5:00 a.m.

Dolly Parton dared us to imagine. She dared us to care. She led us by example. And she took us someplace extraordinary, writes Heidi Stevens.

Sophie Cunningham of the Indiana Fever looks on against the New York Liberty during the first half at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Aug. 11, 2026, in Indianapolis. (Justin Casterline/Getty Images/TNS)

Heidi Stevens: Division and discord are the last things the WNBA needs

August 21, 2026 at 5:00 a.m.

As long as we’re mostly talking about transgender people as some kind of sinister threat to women’s sports, rather than a community of humans deserving of dignity and rights and...

Paper goods and other household items fill the First United Presbyterian Church in Belleville, where the congregation launched a year-round "Needs Among Us" program to help identify and fill the needs of people within and outside their church community. (Rob Dyer/TNS)

Heidi Stevens: How one church turned the offering plate into an outpouring of community

August 14, 2026 at 5:00 a.m.

I love the story, and I love the example. I especially love that the program was born in an offering plate, which isn’t where we’re usually invited to place our...

"Yesteryear," by Caro Claire Burke, and "Majestic Hills," by Dawn Turner, both explore what takes place just beyond the places we’re used to looking. (Heidi Stevens/TNS)

Heidi Stevens: Two summer reads that invite us to glimpse behind the facade of a carefully curated world

August 7, 2026 at 5:00 a.m.

Fiction invites you to walk in someone else’s shoes and inhabit someone else’s mind and experience someone else’s trials and triumphs, writes Heidi Stevens.

Runners start the Bank of America Chicago Marathon on Columbus Drive on Oct. 13, 2019. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

Heidi Stevens: Another training run — and another life lesson

July 31, 2026 at 5:00 a.m.

It’s all fun and games until you have to run 10 miles. Alone, writes Heidi Stevens.

Katie Benn and Carolyn Pinta before dinner in July 9. Benn, a transgender service member, tracked down Pinta earlier that day to tell her how much Pinta’s holiday card campaign for LGBTQ+ people meant to her during a dark period. (Bob Pinta/TNS)

Heidi Stevens: Message received. This visit is proof that card-writing campaign matters.

July 17, 2026 at 5:00 a.m.

Carolyn Pinta was home alone when she heard a knock on the door. She hesitated before she answered, unsure about her unexpected guest’s intentions. The intentions, it turns out, were...

Runners make their way down State Street in the first miles of the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 13, 2024, through the Loop. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

Heidi Stevens: 5 lessons from marathon training that have (almost) nothing to do with running

July 10, 2026 at 5:00 a.m.

Heidi Stevens is committed to learning a new life lesson from each of the 16 weeks of training. We’re five weeks in, so here goes.

A statue of Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable along North Michigan Avenue in 2009. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

Heidi Stevens: Megyn Kelly doesn’t speak for me in her unhinged rant about immigrants

July 3, 2026 at 10:07 a.m.

That’s a whole lot of we-ing and us-ing for someone who surrendered the moral and logical authority to speak for others a long, long time ago, writes Heidi Stevens.

Former President Barack Obama laughs with his wife Michelle Obama during the opening of the Obama Presidential Center on Thursday, June 18, 2026, in Chicago’s Jackson Park. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

Heidi Stevens: Barack Obama cautioned against nostalgia. But is fondness for the past really all bad?

June 26, 2026 at 5:00 a.m.

When Barack Obama addressed the massive, merry crowd at the Obama Presidential Center dedication ceremony on June 18, a few lines landed like a balm, writes Heidi Stevens.

"I trusted that the elevator would work. I trusted that the certificate announcing its maintenance was authentic," writes Heidi Stevens. (Dreamstime/TNS)

Heidi Stevens: Believing we want to help each other is my guiding light — even when I search for reminders

June 12, 2026 at 5:00 a.m.

I trust that we want to take care of each other, writes Heidi Stevens.

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