John Kessel corresponded with a number of prominent individuals involved in editorial work and authorship in the American science fiction community. His correspondence relates primarily to conventions, collaborations, and his publications and the publications of his peers, with a small amount of correspondence of a more personal nature. This series includes a significant amount of correspondence with James Patrick Kelly, Bruce Sterling, and Connie Willis.

Kessel kept an "Editorial correspondence" filing system, arranged alphabetically by editor or publication, and these materials have been kept in Kessel's arrangement in their own sub-series. There is at times overlap between correspondents in the editorial correspondence files and in the general correspondence files.