Happy Hogmanay! ✨ Today is also Jeff Torrington’s birthday(1935–2008), the Glaswegian author of Swing Hammer Swing!, a landmark novel & winner of the 1992 Whitbread Book of the Year. His friends included Gray & @aowensarchive.bsky.social seen here in The Kelvingrove Eight
© Calum Colvin

Merry Christmas from all at The Agnes Owens Archive! Whatever the festive period has in store for you, we wish you a happy and restful break! We are delighted that 2026 will mark the official opening of the Agnes Owens Archive as well as the centenary of her birth.

She’d forgive you! It’s Agnes Owens’ centenary in May 2026 and there’s going to be reissues of her Collected Stories and her o/p Collected Novellas. Her archive has also now found a home at the Alasdair Gray archive in Glasgow @agrayarchive.bsky.social @aowensarchive.bsky.social

Our January tours of AGA and @aowensarchive.bsky.social are now available to book via Eventbrite!

Come visit the AOA and @agrayarchive.bsky.social with Custodian @sorchadallas.bsky.social in January- free tours via booking link here 👉🏽 tr.ee/ISRtuJY_T0

The Agnes Owens Archive opens January 2026, celebrating one of Scotland’s most distinctive literary voices. Marking her centenary, a programme of events and free guided tours will be announced soon. #AgnesOwens

🔥 2026 Residencies 🔥 @kirstininnes.bsky.social & @heatherparry.bsky.social named Writers-in-Residence at the Alasdair Gray & @aowensarchive.bsky.social Chosen from 130+ applicants, they’ll spend 8 months creating new work inspired by overlooked voices, supported by @creativescots.bsky.social

Our Custodian @sorchadallas.bsky.social spoke at Creative Scotland’s Go See Share webinar today on her research into new financial models for artists’ archives, exploring UK examples to support sustainable, artist-led futures in Scotland.

What a year! ✨ Thanks for being part of an incredible 2025 at AGA. 🤍 From 4,800+ tour visitors to new commissions, events & trustees, it’s been huge. Your support makes it all possible — see our 2025 Annual Review, now on our website! ✨

Deadline this Thursday, 04.12.25 at 5pm! thealasdairgrayarchive.org/wp-content/u...

✨ Emerging animators! ✨ AGA & @canongate.co.uk are commissioning 4 short animations for early 2026. Fee £500. Apply by 6 Dec 2025: CV, brief approach + 2–3 samples to [email protected]. Results by 15 Dec.

Delighted to welcome Peter Kravitz for an oral history interview with our @sgsah.bsky.social CDA student, Laura MacDonald at the archive yesterday. He shared rich insights into publishing and Owens’ work, even reading ‘When Shankland Comes.’ Thank you, Peter!

Pls Share! 📣 Teachers! Explore Looking at Glasgow: Buildings and Stories with Alasdair Gray — a new 8-lesson P6–P7 resource on Glasgow’s art, identity & architecture. 🎨 Email [email protected] for free pack! #Glasgow850 #CfE

Link to apply here! thealasdairgrayarchive.org/wp-content/u...

📣PLEASE SHARE 📣 Call for Writers! Two 8-month residencies (2026) at AGA & @aowensarchive.bsky.social exploring Neglected Voices. Supported by Creative Scotland. £12k fee, flexible structure. Apply by 4 Dec 2025 👉 [email protected], Link on website to application brief & criteria✍️

Deadline Thursday! thealasdairgrayarchive.org/wp-content/u...

A real treat to welcome the brilliant @kirstininnes.bsky.social to AGA today and to show her the @aowensarchive.bsky.social archive collection ❤️ #alasdairgray #agnesowens #thealasdairgrayarchive #theagnesowensarchive

Timeline post 24: 1975 - In this year Alasdair meets Agnes Owens @aowensarchive.bsky.social through Liz Lochhead who was teaching at a local writers group in Alexandria which Agnes attended. Alasdair would champion her throughout her life & they would send each other transcripts to edit.

Thanks to everyone who attended our @sgsah.bsky.social Summer School session today on ‘Reflecting Creative Practice Through Archiving’. Our Custodian @sorchadallas.bsky.social enjoyed sharing her journey to growing AGA over the last five years & the development of @aowensarchive.bsky.social

OPENS TODAY: Alasdair Gray: Works from The Morag McAlpine Bequest at Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum feat. book cover art works for @aowensarchive.bsky.social In an interview Morag said: "I think that we probably had quite lonely times before we met. And we now know the value of being together.’

Huge thanks to our brilliant volunteer Evie Glen who has written on ‘Glasgow’s Community Archives’ for GUM mag which highlights AGA and @aowensarchive.bsky.social feat. interviews with our Custodian @sorchadallas.bsky.social & @sgsah.bsky.social CDA researcher Laura MacDonald

Happy birthday James Kelman! Born on 9th of June 1946, Kelman is a Scottish novelist, short story writer & playwright. In his early twenties he began writing stories that were true to his own life & social-cultural experience. Author portraits for Lean Tales with @aowensarchive.bsky.social

Our @aowensarchive.bsky.social @sgsah.bsky.social funded CDA student, Laura MacDonald is presenting today at the Oral History Society conference, ‘Whose Voices?’, on outcomes of interviews with one of Owens’s sons, John Crosbie, and how these interviews have shaped her ongoing doctoral research.

Happy birthday Agnes ❤️ Deeply honoured to be working with Agnes’s family to bring her work to wider attention in 2026 to coincide with her centenary via her archive (housed within @agrayarchive.bsky.social) ❤️

A lovely tour group today including Arts Development Office at West Dunbartonshire Council Maeve Dixon, who was responsible for programming our Agnes talk for International Women’s Day earlier this year, and Shirley Howlitt who invited Agnes to deliver literacy sessions at Maryhill in the 1990s.

Next in our Student Stories series is Arran Mackenzie Rey, with us as part of his Masters in Creative Writing at Strathclyde University working on @aowensarchive.bsky.social to explore gothic links in Agnes’s work, will be sharing his research soon!

Just brilliant and great about the interview!

Fantastic to have Lewis and his lovely family in the archive this morning! Hugely grateful for his contribution to the oral history interviews about Agnes Owens's life and legacy.

Really special to welcome Lewis, Agnes’s grandson, to the archive today with partner Kat and Agnes’s great granddaughter, Freya. Lewis was really generous in allowing our @sgsah.bsky.social researcher, Laura MacDonald, to interview and map his memories of Agnes as a much loved grandmother ❤️

Huge thanks to @danigaravelli.bsky.social for her brilliant piece in @lrb.co.uk this was Alasdair’s favourite literary magazine to read so feels very special for the archive to be featured in it, link in bio to read the piece in full👆🏽

Our Custodian @sorchadallas.bsky.social was delighted to join students yesterday from Curatorial Practice at GSA/GU to discuss her curatorial journey and how she’s been embedding her approach based on radical empathy and care at The Alasdair Gray Archive and @aowensarchive.bsky.social

Another lovely afternoon recording John's memories of his mum, Agnes Owens. Huge thank you, John, for providing such rich and valuable insights!

Fantastic to have Agnes’s son John Crosbie back in the archive yesterday! John came in for his second oral history interview with our @sgsah.bsky.social CDA student, Laura MacDonald. Laura and John are undertaking a series of interviews to record his memories of his mum.

Watch the brilliant @sarasheridan.bsky.social discussing at Gray Day 2025 her recent commission with us, why archives matter and what makes AGA particularly rich. Sara’s short story commission was supported in partnership with Creative Writing at Strathclyde ⬇️

Our Custodian, @sorchadallas.bsky.social, and new Curatorial Assistant, Holly Rennie Brown are delighted to present a lighting talk poster at today's Connecting Communities: A Shared Responsibility for Digital Sustainability @scotsarchives.bsky.social

Our Custodian @sorchadallas.bsky.social honoured to meet so many of Agnes Owens friends & family today whilst discussing her work & plans for sharing via the @aowensarchive.bsky.social at Alexandria Library for #internationalwomensday

For #InternationalWomensDay we celebrate Agnes Owens whose darkly comic stories of everyday working-class life brought a satirical edge to the wealth of post-industrial urban Scottish fiction produced at the end of the 20th cent, can’t wait to open @aowensarchive.bsky.social later this year!

Our Custodian, @sorchadallas.bsky.social , is delighted to be giving a talk on Agnes Owens tomorrow for #internationalwomensday She will be discussing her work & plans to bring it to wider attention via the opening in 2025 of @aowensarchive.bsky.social supported by her family ❤️

For #WorldBookDay sharing Agnes’ 1984 novel, Gentlemen of the West. ‘When ye’ve got nothin’ tae dae ye get intae trouble, even if ye’re no’ lookin’ for it.’ This was Owens’s debut novella, originally published by Polygon Books with cover art by friend @AGrayArchive

To celebrate #scottisharchivesday we are highlighting our new archive, opening later in 2025. Housed within AGA, @aowensarchive.bsky.social contains redrafts of her novels, short stories and unpublished materials.

Spent the afternoon in sunny Balloch, recording an oral history interview with Doreen Hopwood, a friend of Agnes Owens for many decades. Thank you to Doreen for sharing her memories with me, as well as bringing some fab materials that will make an excellent addition to @aowensarchive.bsky.social !

Happy #GrayDay! Ideas for how to celebrate this special day… 👉🏽Come to Gray Day at @oranmorglasgow 👉🏽Visit one of his artworks or murals 👉🏽Read one of his books 👉🏽Share a memory (pls tag us!) Photo by Gunnie Mobley #alasdairgray #thealasdairgrayarchive

📢 New Featured Researcher for Feb '25 Laura MacDonald (@laurzzs.bsky.social) is a PhD Researcher at @strathhasspgrs.bsky.social studying the writings of Agnes Owens in collaboration with @agrayarchive.bsky.social & @aowensarchive.bsky.social ✍️ Read more 🔗 sgsahresearch.com/featured-res...

A momentous day on Friday as the brilliant Evie and Shona completed accessioning and digitising Agnes’s archive! Can’t wait to start to share this incredible collection with you in advance of centenary plans in 2026!

Lovely visitors for a sneak peek at the archive today 👌

Pls share! ⭐️ GRAY DAY 2025 ⭐️ our FIFTH annual event in what would have been AG’s 90th birthday year, Glasgow’s 850th & AGA’s own 5th anniversary through an evening of celebration, this is a crucial fundraiser to help us keep operational so pls come support & celebrate 🎟️ via link in bio 🙏

Great to welcome BBC Scotland’s Pauline McLean today ❤️

Want to hear more about our Custodian’s @sorchadallas.bsky.social work to develop AOA & @agrayarchive.bsky.social then please read the case study featured on the new network, The Scottish Artists Archive Network, read the full piece here ⬇️ www.scottishartistsarchivesnetwork.org

So proud to take part and considered, enthusiastic interviewing from Laura made me proud!