"When I began writing and editing The Weather and the Words: The Selected Letters of John Newlove, I thought it was a project entirely about Newlove and not much else. But gradually I came to appreciate that this book is a microcosm of an era, a glimpse into a time in which letters were not just the stirring fragments of a letter writer’s life, but also the sites in which life-changing introductions took place, mutual admiration societies formed, career-defining decisions were made, philosophies were developed and refined, personal struggles were faced, and fights were fought."