Marvin Bell taught at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop for over 30 years, serving as the Flannery O’Connor Professor of Letters. Bell described the atmosphere of talented teachers:

A great many writers have come to Iowa City to read or teach. John Berryman taught here, Robert Lowell taught here, Karl Shapiro–he didn’t stay long. I think he may not have finished the semester. When I first came back from the Army, Don [Justice] had been away for a year and he had come back and couldn’t find a house, and he said he was going to leave. I was on a weekend pass from the Army to find a rental, so I found a house for him and one for us and then I went back to the Post.