This collection consists of the personal papers of writer and magazine editor Walter Thomas Bezzi. The bulk of the collection consists of manuscript drafts and related materials for short pieces and longer works he wrote, mostly notably related to his novel Hubble Time and his play Dearly Beloved. The collection also includes his handwritten journals dating from 1975-1985, incoming correspondence from friends and family from the 1970s-1990s, and some personal papers. The personal papers largely relate to AIDS and HIV, both generally and Bezzi's specific illness.

The journals cover most of the ten-year period between 1975 and 1985, with only some small gaps. Most of the journals consist of diary entries or drafts of literary works (some of which may be fictionalized accounts of Bezzi's own life?), as well as sketches, outlines, and notes for literary works. Drafts are frequently either in first person or in masculine third person and include dialogue, focused on relationships between people. Pages may have sentences or paragraphs scratched out, and there may be corrections, additions, and other annotations. Some of the drafts and notes/thoughts in the later journals appear related to Bezzi's work on Hubble Time.

Diary entries are typically introspective and philosophical, focused on Bezzi's interior emotional and mental states, as well as relationships with other people, including boyfriends and lovers. He has a complex relationship with Wichita, Kansas and writes about it when visiting family there.

Other items that appear in the journals include recipes, lists, reading notes (mostly in the earliest journals), quotations, logs of daily events or travel schedules, written portraits of other people Bezzi meets, and notes, such as addresses and phone numbers, budgeting, etc. Other topics that appear include sailing--Bezzi was apparently an avid sailor--finances, and Bezzi's long term goals. There are sketches interspersed throughout all the journals, of people, animals, objects, symbols and patterns, and landscapes. Some sketches are more like doodles or very incomplete, and some of the people-focused sketches are only of an individual's eyebrows, mouth, or other specific body part.

Bezzi typically wrote only on the front of pages, usually in blue or black ink. Some of the sketches are colored in with crayon or colored pencil. July 1984 entries mention a hospital stay and AIDS scare; the February-July journal also mentions Bezzi visiting the Hubble house. The July-September 1984 journal includes some entries in what appears to be somebody else's hand. The 1985 journal mostly consists of sketches and notes or lists.

Mostly incoming correspondence, both typed and handwritten, sent to Tom Bezzi from family, friends, and lovers. Includes letters, greeting cards, and postcards; individuals also may have sent recipes, photographs, newspaper clippings, poetry, and other items with the correspondence.

Topics include news and updates about the individual's life and about mutual acquaintances; philosophical musings and emotional states; classes friends were attending (particularly in the correspondence from the 1970s) or teaching themselves; literary references; career- and work-related matters; and other topics of mutual interest. Bezzi's mother Betty frequently directed her letters to both Tom and his younger sister Kathy; she also frequently included copies of letters she sent to others or that were sent to her that she wished to share with her son.

Dating for letters is frequently based on the postmarked envelope. Last names for correspondents also frequently came from envelopes; several postcards and letters without envelopes are only signed by an individual's first name. Loose news clippings, photographs, cartoons, and other items were also found with the correspondence but without an apparent sender, and these items have been placed at the end of the Correspondence series.