Series relates to Shields' personal and professional activities and includes correspondence with: publishers, agents, translators, universities, reading series, writers festivals, award and granting agencies, scholars, students, readers, family and friends. Series contains correspondence with: editors, agent, friends, colleagues, readers and other writers.
In the third accession and fourth accessions in particular, much of the correspondence with friends and family details their reactions to her awards and honours and to lend emotional support during her diagnosis and treatment. Third accession includes correspondence created and received while the Shields spent a year in London. Includes files created by Ruth Partridge who was engaged as Shields personal assistant in 1998: from this point forward she responded to Shields' business correspondence, receiving directions from her in annotations and sticky notes, and kept files, particularly while the Shields lived in London, England for a year (1999-2000). Series includes two interspersed handwritten manuscript pages for Larry's Party.
In the fourth accession: there is correspondence with Marjorie Anderson and contributors to Dropped Threads anthologies. Also contains a small quantity of notes for fiction. At certain points, Shields was assisted for business correspondence by Kathryn Mulders and by members of her family. Versos of documents in this series often contain additional email; draft pages from novels and the Austen biography.
In the fifth accession: Continues to include Carol Shields' correspondence with family, friends, other writers, readers, organizations with which she interacted, and publication and promotion of her work by publishers. Includes many letters reacting to her novel Unless. Also, includes a goodbye card on Shields' departure from Manchester in 1963 and draft pages for script of Unless.
Also in this accession, the series also extends to letters of condolence, correspondence relating to memorial events and tributes and as well as the management of Shields' estate and literary legacy by Don Shields and Anne Giardini. In particular, the activities of the estate/Trust include the development of The Carol Shields Festival of New Works, The Carol Shields Writer in Residence and The Carol Shields Prize, as well as placing donations from her library. Additionally, Shields letters to Anne and her sister Meg are included along with communications among family members.
Correspondence series in the 5th accession includes subseries': Shields own correspondence; Family and estate correspondence, Anne Giardini; and Family and estate correspondence, Don Shields.