[2] She received a Master of Fine Arts degree (MFA) from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and earned a doctorate in 19th-century English literature.
[citation needed] Dibell taught literature and creative writing at several colleges and universities, including Northern Kentucky University,[3] and her alma mater Keuka College.
[7] Dibell published a number of stories and poems in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and received two awards for her poetry.
[citation needed] She also wrote non-fiction, including several books about writing.
[8][9] Her fiction involved "space settlements and the aftermath of the technology which established them," according to one 1982 profile.