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

To celebrate #scottisharchivesday ARA Scotland we are highlighting our new archive, opening later in 2025. Housed within AGA, Agnes Owens Archive contains redrafts of her novels, short stories and unpublished materials, currently being used by our SGSAH funded CDA Laura MacDonald

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 The Alasdair Gray Archive

Our Custodian, Sorcha Dallas Gray, 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 Agnes Owens Archive all developed with support from Gentleman of the West

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 Agnes Owens Archive this year!

Our Custodian Sorcha Dallas Gray was honoured to meet so many of Agnes Owens friends & family today whilst discussing her work & plans for sharing via the Agnes Owens Archive Was excellent to meet her son Bill and grandchildren who shared some hilarious anecdotes ❤️

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

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

Very much enjoy being involved and responding to Laura MacDonald discussion points👍

Our Custodian Sorcha Dallas Gray was delighted to join students yesterday on Curatorial Practice 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 Agnes Owens Archive

Fantastic read London Review of Books by Dani Garavelli on the wonder that is The Alasdair Gray Archive. It captures so well the work which has been carried out to promote Alasdair Gray's legacy – led by the estimable Sorcha Dallas. Sorcha & team now nurturing the legacy of the wonderful Agnes Owens Archive.

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 researcher, Laura MacDonald, to interview and map his memories of Agnes as a much loved grandmother ❤️

My brilliant Australian Family x

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.

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 Agnes Owens Archive to explore gothic links in Agnes’s work, will be sharing his research soon!

A lovely tour 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.

Born on the 24th of May 1926, Agnes Owens would have turned 99 today. Agnes wrote darkly comic stories of everyday working-class life. She was offered advice by Alasdair which she reciprocated, evidence of which is in both AGA & Agnes Owens Archive opening later this year.

Happy birthday Agnes ❤️ we are deeply honoured to be working with Owens family to bring this much overlooked working class writer’s life & work to wider attention, via The Agnes Owens Archive (housed within The Alasdair Gray Archive) opening in time for her centenary in 2026❤️

Happy birthday to the brilliant Agnes Owens fae the Vale ❤️