It could be said that a For decades after its founding, the Iowa Writers' Workshop was the only institution of its kind it's storied past fun to read about serendipitous encounters with and between lions or future lions of American letters, about the actual Workshop process The distinguished Chilean writer José Donoso was a faculty member in the Writers' Workshop in the mid-1960s, the same period when Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was on the faculty. Maria Pilar Donoso wrote about an Iowa City party hosted by Vonnegut, and that account, first published in The World Comes to Iowa: The Iowa International Anthology, is now accessible on Vonnegut's website. http://www.vonnegutweb.com/vonnegutia/occupations_iowa.html> metropolis a memoir of the time I noted in my diary, "William Carlos Williams is coming next Monday." He read his poems in the old Capitol Building on campus. The head of the English department introduced him and said, "Tonight we have William Carlos Williams, one of the finest poets now writing in English." Williams stood up and said, "Goddam it! How many times do I have to tell you, I write in American, not in English!" That's what he was like. I loved him, and had hitchhiked to see him when I was an undergraduate.