Iowa Writers Revisit Their Origin Stories in Sad Me of the Past Podcast
At the end of a book, have you ever wondered: Did this author always write well?
That’s the question at the heart of Sad Me of the Past, a podcast hosted by Daniel Khalastchi (05MFA), executive director of the new University of Iowa Office of Writing and Communication, and Lauren Haldeman (01BA, 06MFA), Writing University webmaster.
Each episode, UI-affiliated authors dust off their earliest writings—childhood stories, teenage poems, long-forgotten drafts—and read them aloud. The result is a poignant and often comical look at rough, unpolished work from some of today’s most successful writers.
Rachel Yoder (11MFA), author of Nightbitch, reads from her fifth-grade story about becoming an astronaut: “I was trying to imagine my way into something that felt utterly impossible,” she says, which felt similar to writing the last paragraph of her debut novel at the First Avenue Java House. “It was like, ‘Oh, you write the book to become the person who’s capable of writing the book.’” When it was done, she says, “I became the person who could write the book.”
Nam Le (06MFA), author of The Boat, moved from Australia to attend the Workshop: “I cannot explain to you how enchanting it was to arrive here,” he says. “Everyone’s talking about writing and reading. It was just glorious.”
Journalist Joe Fassler (11MFA) recalls the magic of Iowa City’s writing community: “You feel the energy in the coffee shops—and you just know there’s a higher per capita writing contingent here than even places like New York City.” He adds that his time at Iowa “took books and storytelling and connection through words and presented a path—like this is a thing. You can build a life around this.”
Poet Srikanth Reddy (00MFA) shares a poem from his first year in the Workshop: “My poetry got so bad when I got in the Workshop, because everyone else’s poetry was inspiring mine … I lost any sense of what my style was,” he says. But through practice—and the support of the community—Reddy found his voice again. “It’s still really a place where people can be creative together, and that’s really rare,” he says. “I’ve visited different writing and artistic communities, but I always keep coming back to this place.”