Correspondence related to administrative matters. Includes a welcome letter to Access Copyright (the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), a letter and cheque from the Public Lending Right Commission for the year 2004, and a welcome letter to the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia.
Also contains an invitation to the 2008 Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia Masterworks Arts Award.

Materials related to the 2011 Canadian Authors Association (CAA) Literary Awards in which Julia McCarthy was awarded the CAA Award for poetry. Includes pamphlet for the ceremony, certificate of the award, and medal and lapel pin in a box.
Also contains a congratulatory letter from Garfield Dunlop, Member of Parliament for Simcoe North and certificates of achievement from the City of Orillia.

Materials related to Julia McCarthy's creative process. Includes drafts of poems at different stages, research materials accumulated by McCarthy during her writing, drafts of McCarthy's books and copy-edit notes and comments received from her editors and Don Domanski, published poems in different media, and promotional materials for her publications.

Printout of death vows written by McCarthy for her second husband Graham Stewart. McCarthy wrote this eulogy to be read at a private service she had in her backyard only attended by six close friends. The eulogy refers to two poems by William Stanley Merwin "Variation on a theme" and "Into de cloud," and two poems by McCarthy titled "The night is a boat" and "As the day keeps."

Wooden board with a serigraph printing of a poster of an event organized by Malaspina University-College. Event is the Ralph Gustafson Poetry Chair presenting Cape Breton Poet Don Domanski: "Don Domanski: a conversation" (October 19) and "Poetry and the Sacred" (October 20). Board is signed by Domanski to McCarthy.

Poems and drafts of poems written and annotated by Julia McCarthy and later included in her book All the Names between. Includes poems: “Still the blue,” “February,” “Before the before,” “A room no longer there,” “A broken necklace,” “Because everything is water,” “A place never photographed,” “The long chain” (later titled “Séance”), “When night is not enough” (later titled “When night” and “For now”), “Field of language (silent film),” “Long good-bye to paradise,” “The night is a boat,” “The word no one knows” (later titled “A word no one knows”), “The slow dissolve” (later titled “Disjecta membra”), “The fourth bear,” “Moon song” (later titled “Throwing the bones: moon song”), “Woundless,” “Tree of sorrows,” “Soliloquy of a field mouse,” “A name I once wore,” “Orphan to none” (later titled “Mysterium tremendum”), “Biography” (later titled “Autobiography”), “Flying the words home,” “A poem considers its life” (later titled “Field of language (silent film)”), “An ocean field,” “Substance to ether,” “Song of the afterlife,” and "Afterfeathers."

Also contains poems “The private life of a chair,” “What is large,” “Little house of misfortune,” “The blood we can’t see,” “Three devils,” “A single brown eye” “What sustains the forms/The stranger,” “I’ve been companion to my father,” “In the sun,” “The river rises,” “Right in front of me.”

Poems and drafts of poems written and annotated by Julia McCarthy and later included in her book All the Names between. Includes poems: “A white room full of white birds,” “All the hidden places,” “A house waiting to be haunted,” “After midnight,” “Little fires” (later titled “Yellow birds in cages of water”), “The word no one knows” (later titled “A word no one knows”), “Spring equinox,” “The last silence,” “The animate breath” (also titled “Any place”), “Séance,” “A broken necklace,” “A red singing” also titled “How the dead speak,” “Flying the words home,” “Initiation,” “The book of obscure sorrows,” “A separate kingdom (white-nose fungus),” “Bat song,” “Last rites” also titled “The arsonist,” “When the stones wept,” “Where once there were stairs,” “Transmigration,” “Lorca’s ants,” “The earth’s thaumaturgy,” “My grief has waited for this” (later titled “As the day keeps”), “On the cusp of Spring,” “The long chain,” “The prescience of Spring” (later titled “Siamese forests”), “Somnambulant meadows” also titled “A simple beginning and end,” “A name I once wore,” “Field of language (silent film),” “When night is not night enough” (later titled “When night”), “Throwing the bones: moon song,” and “The word no one knows.”

Also contains poems “Pack,” “A conversation without words,” “Fool moon” also titled “The white spider,” “The rhythms of birds,” “The first nights,” “Playing the invisible,” “My life as a comma,” “Nest,” “Artificial limbs” also titled “Phantom limbs,” “Before I disappeared,” “Elsie’s field,” “On form,” “Black scissors,” “Longhorn spruce beetle,” “Where the unseen gathers,” “Feeding the dead,” “After Winter,” “Airmail or on finding a dead chickadee,” “Shadow play,” “Slap stick,” and “What holds up my house.”

Poems and drafts of poems written and annotated by Julia McCarthy and later included in her book Return from Erebus. Includes poems: “In the absence of narrative,” “Return from Erebus” also titled “Returned from Abaddon,” “Imago,” “I do not know your name,” “Ten meditations on ephemera,” “November’s conversion,” “Letters after dark” also titled “Conversation with silence” (later titled “Beneath Cyrillic stars”), “The name that floats on black water,” “A brightly coloured ball,” “News from the prosaic world,” “A mitochondrial whisper” also titled “Kenosis” and “The black forest,” “An animal sadness” also titled “Locking up,” “Taking leave” also titled “Like a sound inhaled” and “Waving good-bye” “The white forest,” “The little black world,” “Snow in August,” “Surrounded,” “On the plain of asphodel” also titled “Daymoon,” “Flying underground,” “False Spring,” “I walk a stony path into the orchard,” “Phenomenology of leaving,” “Twelve red caskets,” “The Weight of who you are,” “Imago,” “Poem in black,” “Something resembling light,” “Kundalini rising,” “Diabolos,” “Hibernacula,” “The mythic pushing,” “The drown” also titled “Erasing the rain,” “Poem in white,” “The white moose,” “Rain on windows” also titled “water on windows” (later titled “Rain in a small room”), “Out of the ordinary,” “What we reach for,” “Erasing the narratives,” “Blind spot,” “Gestalt,” “Circling like a great silence” also titled “Variations on a theme,” “Tuesday,” “In the room of quartz”, “Poem in grey,” “When the white dove appears,” “The poem is an animal” also titled “Wolf watching,” “Palimpsest on a rainy evening,” “A brief history of blue” (later titled “Out of the blue”), “Metallurgical lesson,” “Ontological slang,” “Behind the poem,” “Aphelion,” “Psalms” (later titled “Psalm”), “Angel of loneliness,” “The clouds reach down” also titled “A nephologist’s report” and “Nephology” and “The forest,” and “Noctuary.”

Also contains poems “My widowed heart,” “Almost alone,” “Nothing but this,” “Zero at the bone,” “At the crematorium” also titled “Digging into fire,” “Novae,” “Bifocal,” “Book of clouds 2,” “That space which considers,” “The Hour Glass,” “What no one knows,” “Book of clouds,” “Late November,” “Turning back the blood,” “Wolf and at the door” also titled “The pup/the fortress,” “What the poem said,” “Thrown and altered,” "Pulling the pin," "Apology," and "Excarnation."

Includes a poem by Giacomo Leopardi titled “The infinite,” and personal correspondence and poem by Don Domanski (poem is titled "The poems returning home").

Poems and drafts of poems written and annotated by Julia McCarthy and later included in her book Return from Erebus. Includes poems: “Something resembling light,” “That mythic pushing,” “Psalms” (later titled “Psalm”), “Hibernacula,” “Blind spot,” “False spring,” “Noctuary,” “Twelve red caskets,” “Flying underground,” “Ten meditations on ephemera,” “Return from Erebus,” “Erasing the narratives,” “Poem in white,” “Poem in grey,” “A brief history of blue” (later titled “Out of the blue”), “Poem in black,” and “In the room of quartz.”

Also contains poems “Bifocal,” “Book of clouds,” “Midnight meals,” “Yellow” also titled “Poem in yellow,” “Poem in blue,” “Banishing blue,” “On the death of a poet’s cat” also titled “This dream the night before,” and “Zero at the bone.”

Includes photocopies of newspaper clippings about McCarthy.

Poems and drafts of poems written and annotated by Julia McCarthy and later included in her book Stormthrower. Includes poems: “The invisible net,” “The meeting,” “Voice of the nest,” “In my dreams,” “Dancing a mandala,” “Stormthrower,” “Tsunami song,” “Her long sorrow,” “The blue eel,” “House of feathers,” “Stormthrower learns to speak,” “The invisible country” also titled “Notes from the invisible country,” “Meteor shower,” “Indigo city,” “A necklace of dogs,” “Hurricane,” “Tornado envy,” “Stormcellars,” “Stormthrower’s runes,” “Goat-riders,” “Facing north,” “The invisible country,” “Goat song,” “In the goldfinch garden,” "Fugue in pine," "When the light creased," "Letter to my younger sister" (later titled "The bus ride"), "Translating the ordinary," and "In the field at dusk."

Also contains poems “Death wears a scapular,” “Stormthrower’s alibi,” “The alchemy of laundry,” “My father-in-law,” “Dance of the herons,” “The heron in the stream,” “Prayer birds,” “The bait caster,” and “Voice of the nest.”

Includes correspondence received by McCarthy from Harvey Freeman and Richard Alapack.

Poems and drafts of poems written and annotated by Julia McCarthy and later included in her book Stormthrower. Includes poems: “The invisible net,” "When the light creased," "The bus ride," “The hour of the wolf,” "Translating the ordinary," "Fugue in pine," “Round rooms,” “Secret languages,” “Silence is an animal,” “Code maker,” “House of feathers,” “In the field at dusk,” “Voice of the nest,” “The meeting,” “Notes from the invisible country,” “In the goldfinch garden,” “Indigo city,” “Stormthrower learns to speak,” “In my dreams,” “Stormthrower’s alibi,” “Facing North,” “Water-bearer,” “Salmon watching,” “Trolling,” “The blue eel,” “Stormthrower,” “Her long sorrow,” “The season of porcelain,” “Shedding season,” “Hurricane,” “Tornado envy,” “The turning,” “Stormthrower’s runes,” "The fall," and "In the hole."

Also contains poems “Water tables,” “Wash day meditation” also titled “The alchemy of laundry,” “The forgotten closet,” “Prayer beads,” “Snowfort,” “Cut bait,” “Bird brain,” “The bait caster,” “Winter poem,” “The snake-charmer’s lullaby,” “Good Friday earthquake,” “Mining disaster.”

Includes correspondence received from Don Domanski with notes about “Notes from the invisible country” and “Stormthrower,” and a list of poems, possibly considering which ones to include in the book.

Materials related to the submission for grants. Includes correspondence related to the Nova Scotia Tourism and Culture Creation Program for Grants to Individuals program and seven poems possibly related to the submission for the year 2002; description, instruction for submission and submission forms for the Nova Scotia Tourism and Culture professional development, creation, and presentation for the year 2006 and related correspondence; and submission forms for the Canada Council for the Arts grants for professional writers for the year 2006; project descriptions for unspecified grants; and several versions of McCarthy's curriculum vitae.

Newspaper publications and clippings related to McCarthy’s publications and interests. Includes the Chronicle-Herald (November 8, 2002); Atlantic Books Today, (n. 38, Winter 2002) with an article about McCarthy’s book Stormthrower; The Weekly Press (vol. 31, issue 44, November 1, 2017, and vol. 20, issue 28, July 13, 2005) with articles about McCarthy’s work Stormthrower. Also contains printout of questions by Open Book and answers by McCarthy for an interview after the release of All the names between.

Materials created or accumulated by Julia McCarthy during her professional and personal life. Includes journals and personal correspondence received by McCarthy, drafts of poems and anthologies, professional correspondence related to the publication of McCarthy's work, correspondence related to applications for grants and awards, awards received by McCarthy, interviews and articles about McCarthy, and work by and about other authors accumulated by McCarthy.

Letters of acceptance, payment, or rejection received by Julia McCarthy for the publication of her works. Includes correspondence received from The Malahat Review, ARC: Canada’s national magazine of poetry and poetry criticism, Wascana Review, The Fiddlehead, Room of One’s Own, Ronsdale Press, and Grain Magazine, Wolsak and Wynn Publishers Ltd. (including royalty payment for her first book), McGill Queen’s University Press, Brick Books, Anansi, Descant, Beach Holme Publishing Limited, The Antigonish Review, The New Quarterly, Contemporary Verse 2_, CV2, Prairie Fire, The Douglas College Review, PRISM international, Atlanta Review, and Brick Books.

Also contains invitations for submission for Milieu Press, recommendation letters written by Don Domanski for McCarthy and McCarthy’s curriculum vitaes possibly from the 1990s.

Materials related to the submission and publication of Julia McCarthy’s work in different media. Includes submissions to Vintage 2000, Grain Magazine, Event, The Malahat Review (with poems "A poem considers its life," "Circling like a great silence," " "Tuesday," and "Blind spot"), The New Quarterly (with poems “What we reach for,” “Angel of loneliness,” “The weight of who you are,” “Psalms,” “Kundalini rising,” “Metallurgical lesson,” “Bifocal,” “Poem in grey,” and “November’s conversion”), CV2 (with poems “Diabolos” and “Memoir of a codebreaker”), and Bren Simmers (with poems "Meditations on ephemera," "Bifocal," "The hour glass," "Flying underground," "The poem is an animal," "The white moose," and "Sunflower"). Also includes related correspondence and permission to publish forms.

Materials related to Don Domanski receiving the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia Masterworks Arts Award for his work All our wonders unavenged. Includes nomination written by Julia McCarthy and related newspaper clippings from The Chronicle Herald (November 27 and November 28, 2008), and The Globe and Mail (November 28, 2007).

Julia McCarthy's personal copies of her books that she used to do readings after the launch of each of the books. Includes books Stormthrower (2002), Return from Erebus (2010), and All the names between (2017), notes for the readings, and markings on the books indicating the order of the readings.
Also contains bird feathers that she used to show the audience as an example before she read the last poem "Afterfeathers" from her book All the names between (McCarthy had a feather collection).

Personal correspondence received and sent by Julia McCarthy. Includes correspondence received and sent to personal acquaintances some with poems by McCarthy and correspondence received by McCarthy congratulating her for her publications and/or readings.
Poems included are titled "The weight of who you are," "The poem is an animal," and "Noctuary."
Also contains a map of Shubenacadie Wildlife park with annotations by McCarthy.

Personal correspondence received by Julia McCarthy from Don Domanski in the form of letters, emails, and postcards. Includes poem written by Domanski titled "Good bruin in the heart" and two photographs of Domanski.
Also contains a bookmark made from a line Domanski had put in an email to McCarthy after the release of her second or third book.

Materials related to Julia McCarthy's personal life. Includes personal journals and diaries she kept between the years 1985 and 2006, personal correspondence she received or sent to multiple individuals (with the preeminence of correspondence received from Don Domanski), and eulogy for McCarthy's second husband Graham Stewart.

Materials created by Don Domanski, sent to and accumulated by Julia McCarthy. Includes correspondence received by McCarthy from Domanski with his poems.
Poems are titled “Beside the river,” “Words of surrender,” “Overshadows,” “A great space,” “The god in the crevice,” “Maker of dust,” “Spirits among weddings,” “Meditation,” “The star saliph,” “The star Betelgeuse," "Natal," "Supplications in a room," "Maker of dust," "Pearls," "Pathogens," "Meditation," "A clench of deity," "Walking through a field," "Three ribbons," "The daemon of walking," "The silence of remembered time," "A woman watching," "Thresholds gather round them," "Leviathan," "Dark medicines," "Speaking in the outer world," "The evening dress," "Under a star equal to locality," "All our wonder unavenged," "Untitled with invisible ink," "Anecdote," "A hummingbird's heart beats 1260 times a minute," "Leaning on silk," "Otherness of the little songs," "Ars poetica," "Twelve white chapters," "Aeon," "While clouds break twigs beside the river," "Dark graffiti," "Parish of the physic moon," "The leaf opera," "Cloudbursts in a lower world," "The planet asleep on your heart," "At the height of names," "The scarab," "Osprey and salmon," "Twelve corners of the earth," "Genius loci," and "In the field of orison."
Also contains a flyer for The Gallery Reading Series with Don Domanski (Saint Mary's University - Department of English, February 18, 2000).

Published poems by Julia McCarthy in different media. Includes a published copy of Literary Review of Canada (Vol. 16, No. 10, December 2008) with poem titled “Beneath Cyrillic stars,” a photocopy of The Antigonish Review (no. 157) with poem titled “meditations on Ephemera: #4 Earwig” (2005), and published copy of Contemporary poetry series: nature and the sacred (Vol. 1, No. 3, 2017) with poem "Before the before" (also includes poem by Don Domanski "Birthday").

Notes and comments on the edition of book Return from Erebus made by Barry Dempster with annotations by Julia McCarthy. Includes a copy of Brick Books author information sheet filled out by McCarthy and correspondence received by Julia McCarthy regarding Brick Books publicity survey with McCarthy’s notes and answers to survey.

Materials related to the promotion of book Return from Erebus. Includes poster of event “Read by the sea: bringing Canada’s finest writers to Nova Scotia’s North shore” (July 21, 2012); poster for “Reading series at St. Jerome’s presents Julia McCarthy” (March 8, 2012); poster for “Saint Mary’s University English Department Gallery Reading series” (November 16, [2012?]) and poster “Joi D’ vivre: a feast for the senses” (January 21, 2009). Also contains bookmarks about the book.

Materials related to book Stormthrower. Includes information related to public readings, leaflet for “Art bar Poetry Series,” newsletter from Wolsak and Wynn (Fall 2002) with information about the book, itinerary for Julia McCarthy and Deirdre Dwyer and invitation to reception for an event from them, photocopy of Poet’s corner, and bus ticket.
Also contains print-out of poem “Twa corbies” written by Don Domanski.

Materials related to Julia McCarthy's administrative affairs. Includes materials related to the submission of her work for publication in different media, interviews and reports about McCarthy, applications for grants and awards, reception of awards, and other general administrative matters.

Materials created or accumulated by Julia McCarthy about or by other authors. Predominantly includes materials received from or about Don Domanski, such as his poems or anthologies and McCarthy's nomination for Domanski for the Lieutenant Governor masterworks Arts Award and award. Also contains materials related to Wayne Boucher's exhibition “Radiance and counterpoint" and a poem by an unidentified author.