The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, founded by Wilbur Schramm in 1936, became the first creative writing degree program in the United States. Iowa City was recognized by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, as the first City of Literature in the United States and the third in the world. “Writers in a Café,” written by Marvin Bell in 2008 for Iowa City’s bid to become a UNESCO City of Literature, evokes a place shaped by rich mid-country soil, sweeping sky, river and bridge landscapes, and writers working in attics, basements, and cafés, giving voice to local lives, public affairs, memory, myth, and endurance.