The University of Iowa Writing Department created a podcast for writers affiliated with the university to dig deep into their writing portfolios from years prior and analyze not only the work, but the younger person who created it. Now, the podcast has created an outlet for multiple writers since its debut one year ago.

Lauren Haldeman, visiting assistant professor at the UI and senior editor for the podcast, works with a team to create a sense of belonging and connection for guest writers and help them find a version of their little “sad me” in their old works of writing.

“It’s this idea of finding work from your past when you were still learning your craft and were much younger and appreciating that step in your process,” Haldeman said. “It’s also having a little bit of humor about yourself and a little bit of levity and this little person who was trying so hard.”

Haldeman and her team have produced eight episodes featuring nine different writers in the past year.

“I had this idea for a while. I initially thought it would be a comedy podcast,” Haldeman said. “We’d look at this terrible stuff we wrote, and we’ll workshop it. But once we started doing it, it became much more of a therapy session than a roast.”

The connections that developed on the podcast were shocking to Haldeman but became something she was very proud of and is excited to continue.

“A lot of times, we find that authors were already working through stuff as a child that they had no way of gaining enough perspective until they were adults to know what they were doing,” Haldeman said. “Even as kids, we’re processing and telling a story, and that’s a very powerful way to process something you don’t understand.”

The podcast has become a form of catharsis for Haldeman, allowing her to learn from the other writers and gain a better understanding of what their experiences at Iowa meant to them as well as how their younger lives shaped who they became later on.

“I think, for me, it’s comforting to see so many people I admire and that I hold in high standing to see their vulnerability,” Haldeman said. “It makes me less ashamed of my own. So, it’s really helped with my own self-compassion and seeing that little sad me that I was in a different light.”

Joe Fassler, featured in an August episode of “Sad Me of the Past,” is a journalist and writer based in Denver, Colorado. His debut novel, “The Sky Was Ours,” retells the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus as a story of obsession, longing, and the radical pursuit of utopia.

“When I was told about the podcast, I loved the idea,” Fassler said. “I love embarrassing, earnest work from our past. The hosts were so insightful and wonderful. And in a full circle way, it made me happy to think about the 16-year-old and to think about how excited he would have been.”

Fassler has a strong connection to Iowa. As a 16-year-old, he attended the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio. Later in his life, he completed his master of fine arts in fiction at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Returning to Iowa City was a blessing, Fassler said, and it helped him to reclaim his younger self.

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“It was so wonderful to rediscover what I’d already known,” Fassler said. “It showed me that I was right in my feelings, and it made me very emotional to commune with my 16-year-old self and to write something that had the ability to make people feel something all these years later.”

As a young kid, Fassler knew he enjoyed writing but didn’t know it could be a profession until he came to Iowa. His connection to the writing programs at Iowa shaped him, and talking about that on the podcast was like a form of therapy, Fassler said. The 10-year process it took to write his first novel wouldn’t have been possible without Iowa and the young writer he used to be.

“Often, when we move on in life, we don’t return,” Fassler said. “So, I’m so lucky to have this particular place be a through-line in my life for almost 25 years. It’s shaped me as a person profoundly, and I’m really grateful for that.”

Another author invited to speak on the podcast is Carmen Maria Machado, a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She was featured on one of the first episodes of the podcast in April of 2024. She is an author of many genres, including short stories, memoirs, and graphic novels. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the Bard Fiction Prize, among many other accolades.

“I think there’s a little bit of sadness that one always experiences when one reaches that far back into the past,” Machado said. “I think that being able to reach back to see that young self is a little bittersweet and beautiful. I feel a little sad for her, but it’s also cool to see the writer I was becoming and existing and evolving on the page.”

From a young age, Machado knew she would be a writer, and now that that’s her career, she feels Iowa’s influence further guided her on that path. Machado said being around other writers and having the time and space to write pushed her toward a career in writing.

“I had to dig through all this juvenilia to find a piece of writing I could bring in,” Machado said. “And that was really fun to just do that. And then to get to go on and dig into who I would have been at that moment when I wrote that poem and who I was as a young writer was really nice.”

The podcast provided both a sense of nostalgia and a feeling of pride for Machado, she said. It was refreshing to look back at the works she wrote as a younger child and who she used to be, showing that she has been consistent in who she was as a writer.

“When I read things I wrote as a young person, I can see my interests developing in the past. And that young self who was writing and reading all the time was laying the foundation for the writer that I became. Even when things are a little silly, you’re learning how to be,” Machado said.

The “Sad Me of the Past” podcast has been a form of therapy for many of the guests who have come to speak, including authors, screenwriters, translators, and poets. The writers gain a better understanding of their writing as a youth as well as who they are now and how that younger person shaped them, Haldeman said.

“I feel like we need to be more open about how much work it takes and that it’s even possible to become a writer,” Haldeman said. “No one’s born a bestseller. We develop this and work on it over time. And just seeing that is like, I could, too.”

The most recent episode, published on Oct. 7, includes a conversation with Bret Anthony Johnson and his journey from Texas skateboarder to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop to Harvard professor and back to Texas, with all the stops in-between.

“Within the first few episodes, we realized we were going back to these parts of the past where we might be stuck,” Haldeman said. “My idea of the podcast was so different from what it is now. I thought it would be much more surface-level and comedic. But I’m so happy with the direction it’s going.”