Series 2 contains hand-written and typed drafts, and is arranged to into six sub-series:

Sub-Series 1: Book manuscripts. For each book represented here, materials may include research resources for the development of the book, manuscript drafts and revisions, correspondence relating to the development of the book, marketing resources for promoting the published book, and in some cases reviews and other documents. For each book, the materials are organized in rough chronological order following the development of the manuscript, engagement with editors, and all that followed with publication.

Sub-Series 2: Prose, essays, and fiction. This series includes an array of stand-alone prose projects, including essays, statements composed for distribution in class, manifestos on writing and teaching, open letters, short stories, monologs, and other forms of short prose that may or may not have been ultimately published.

Sub-Series 3: Poems. This series contains poems in draft, in revision, and in final form. Some poems here have been published in journals, some have been gathered in books, but many are unpublished. Some have resulted from revision of drafts on daily writing pages, some have been written in class with students, some have been composed for an occasion, a place, or a person.

Sub-Series 4: Lyrics and Songs. This series contains drafts and final lyrics for songs, several dozen of which became recordings on the Kim Stafford CDs Wheel Made of Wind and Pilgrim at Home: Vagabond Songs. In addition, there are draft song lyrics that have not been recorded or found their final form.

Sub-Series 5: Speeches. This series contains texts for speeches read verbatim, and scripts for more improvisational presentations. Speeches may be identified by venue, by or date, or both. Many of these speeches are also represented in audio form in Series 10, and in the Digital Archive.

Sub-Series 6: Plays, translations, other writing. This series holds two plays, a number of translations, and other written forms.