2026 Writers-in-Residence

The Alasdair Gray Archive (AGA) and The Agnes Owens Archive (AOA) are delighted to announce the appointment of Kirstin Innes and Heather Parry as their Writers-in-Residence for 2026, following a highly competitive open-call process. The residencies are supported by The National Lottery through Creative Scotland.

The eight-month residency programme, Writing in the Margins, invites writers to explore how class, gender, and societal expectations intersect across the works of Alasdair Gray and Agnes Owens, under the overarching theme of ‘neglected voices’. Over the course of the residency, Innes and Parry will develop new creative work, engage with the public and draw inspiration from the extensive collections held at both archives.

Innes and Parry were selected from more than 130 applications through a rigorous shortlisting and interview process led by Sorcha Dallas (Custodian of the Alasdair Gray and Agnes Owens Archives), Chitra Ramaswamy (author and journalist), and Dr. Rodge Glass (Creative Writing, University of Strathclyde).

Sorcha Dallas, Custodian of The Alasdair Gray and The Agnes Owens Archives, said:

“I’m delighted to be collaborating with Kirstin Innes and Heather Parry in 2026 on our new residencies, which will draw on the rich and diverse archives of Alasdair Gray and Agnes Owens as inspiration for fresh short-form fiction. Both authors embody the finest of contemporary Scottish writing—innovative, boundary-defying, and deeply rooted in the tradition that Gray and Owens helped shape.”

Kirstin Innes lives in Renfrewshire. She’s the author of the novels Fishnet (2015), Scabby Queen (2020) and the forthcoming The Book of Risk (2027) as well as co-author of the non-fiction book Brickwork: A Biography of The Arches (2021). She has also written extensively for radio, and her short fiction has been published in a number of anthologies.

Kirstin has recently written a new introduction to Agnes Owens’ 1994 novel A Working Mother, which will be republished by Birlinn in a new edition to celebrate Owens’ centenary year in 2026. On writing the introduction and being a recipient of the 2026 residency, Innes shared:

‘I was privileged to be able to spend a day researching in The Agnes Owens Archive recently. It’s both a vital lifeline to the work of a shamefully overlooked author and a damning indictment of the ways she was disregarded because of her age, class and background.

Spending that dedicated time in another writer’s notes and thoughts and the written parts of her life was so inspiring that I’m hugely excited to start working in this fantastic resource on a longer-term basis. I’m also really looking forward to delving into Alasdair Gray’s working processes, and the editorial and collaborative aspects of their relationship in depth, and helping The Archives celebrate Owens’ centenary year.’

Heather Parry is a Glasgow-based writer and editor, originally from South Yorkshire. Her debut novel Orpheus Builds a Girl, was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year Award and longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize. She is also the author of a short story collection, This Is My Body, Given For You, and her first nonfiction book, Electric Dreams: On Sex Robots and the Failed Promises of Capitalism, was released in 2024 as part of 404 Ink’s Inklings series.

Her most recent novel was Carrion Crow, a queer Edwardian gothic, and she has a book of fiction forthcoming in 2027. On undertaking the residency, Parry shared:

‘So much of my work intersects with what both Gray and Owens were interested in – namely how social, political and economic structure affect our relationships to ourselves, to our bodies and to others – and their embrace of the short story form is a great inspiration to me. Being supported to spend eight months working with, exploring and responding to the archives of these two incredible writers is a dream come true.’

Alan Bett, Head of Literature & Publishing at Creative Scotland said:

“Writing in the Margins is an incredible and unique opportunity for the two selected writers and it will be exciting to see the different ways Heather and Kirstin draw from the rich collections of Alasdair Gray Archive and Agnes Owens to create fresh work. Thanks to National Lottery funding, the residencies will blend the innovative and contemporary writing of the authors with the diverse and historical themes of the archives, forming a collaboration rooted in iconic Scottish literature.”

Chitra Ramaswamy, author and journalist shared:

“I’m thrilled with our selection of Heather Parry and Kirstin Innes as the 2026 Alasdair Gray Archive and Agnes Owens Archive Writing in the Margins writers in residence. Both writers demonstrated a deep commitment to responding to and interrogating specific writings, materials and objects in both writers’ archives, a passion for exploring overlooked themes around, in particular, class, gender, and historical context, and were full of ideas and enthusiasm when it came to community engagement and collaboration. I can’t wait to see the original work they produce.”

Dr. Rodge Glass, Creative Writing at The University of Strathclyde added:

“Heather and Kirstin are two of our very finest established writers: in contrasting ways, they both bring furious intelligence, curiosity, playfulness and an interrogative spirit to everything they do. Both are well placed to reposition Agnes Owens’ work in particular, in Scotland and beyond – the Agnes Owens Archive deserves attention on its own terms. Alasdair’s lifelong practice, meanwhile, was a generous experiment in the art of the creative response: making new, imagined stories out of existing stories, across the visual and literary arts, acknowledging and celebrating influence. I can’t wait to see how Heather and Kirstin respond creatively to the valuable nuggets they find in the Alasdair Gray Archive.”

The Alasdair Gray Archive is an interdisciplinary arts and heritage organisation centred on public engagement and creative commissioning. Since its founding in 2020, it has developed a socially conscious model of practice shaped by Alasdair’s working methods. The Archive includes a fully accessible space featuring a partial recreation of Alasdair’s front room—the place where he lived and worked. Visitors are invited to handle and explore the collection and the everyday objects that surrounded him, many of which informed his creative output. The Archive is an active, generative resource that seeks to amplify the social impact of creativity through Creative Commissioning, Public Engagement, and Education.

The Agnes Owens Archive (AOA) is a dedicated collection housed within the Alasdair Gray Archive and is opening January 2026. As the AGA’s first standalone satellite archive, it highlights the network of influence that shaped Gray’s work. The collection began with a donation of more than 700 items—including press cuttings, photographs, correspondence, and draft manuscripts—generously gifted by Agnes’s son, John Crosbie. It continues to grow through further donations and newly recorded oral histories, gathered as part of a Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities Collaborative Doctoral Award led by researcher Laura MacDonald.

The archive is dedicated to deepening understanding of Owens’s creative process and the cultural contexts in which she wrote, both within Scotland and internationally. The curatorial approach draws on AGA practices, using Owens’s published and unpublished works as an organising framework, with archival boxes devoted to each title.

Creative Scotland is the public body that supports culture and creativity across all parts of Scotland, distributing funding provided by the Scottish Government and The National Lottery.

Further information at creativescotland.com. Follow Creative Scotland on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

More information: 

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www.thealasdairgrayarchive.org 

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Miriam Morris

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