Paul Merchant was born in Wales and studied at Cambridge, The Shakespeare Institute, and the University of Athens. His career has been varied and has included work as a teacher, an editor, a translator, a writer, and as the archivist for the William Stafford Archives. Merchant's teaching career included stints at the University of Warwick, the University of Tennessee, and Lewis & Clark College. He has edited the plays of Thomas Heywood, essays on Wendell Berry, three posthumous William Stafford books, and two books about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He has also worked as an editor for Breitenbush Press and Oregon State University Press. Merchant's work as a translator began as the translator of the first selection of Ritsos published in England, Modern Poetry In Translation 4 (1968). He is also the translator of Eleni Vakalo’s Genealogy (1971). His recent translations from Yannis Ritsos are Monochords (Trask House Press 2007), and Twelve Poems about Cavafy (Tavern Books, 2010). Merchant collections of his own poetry include Stones (Rougemont Press, 1973), Salt Water Island (Five Seasons Press, 1983), Bone from a Stag's Heart (Five Seasons Press, 1988), and Some Business of Affinity (Five Seasons Press, 2006). Bone from a Stag’s Heart was a 1988 British Poetry Book Society Recommendation and Some Business of Affinity was a finalist for an Oregon Book Award.

This collection includes editorial correspondence with authors and staff at the Oregon State University Press. It also includes correspondence with all of the contributors to Wendell Berry (Confluence Press, 1991). These correspondents include: Wendell Berry, Mindy Weinred, Wallace Stegner, Judith Weissman, Gary Snyder, Terry Tempest Williams, Wes Jackson, Hayden Carruth, Michael Hamburger, Gregory McNamee, Mark Shadle, Jack Hicks, Herman Nibbelink, Ross Feld, Carl Esbjornson, Donald Hall, Lionel Basney, William C. Johnson, and Jeffery Alan Triggs.