Lean Tales comprises Agnes Owens’ complete life's work in short stories. Witty and dark, Owens’ spare prose shocks and delights. Her talent for pithy, unsettling tales is as sharp as ever, confirming her place as one of Scotland’s finest contemporary writers.

Published to celebrate Agnes Owens' centenary year in 2026.

Agnes Owens was always a writer, although for the majority of her life she was preoccupied with making a living and domesticity. She married twice, brought up seven children and variously worked as a typist, cleaner and factory worker. It wasn’t until she attended an evening creative writing course that she wrote her first novel Gentlemen of the West that was published in 1984 to widespread critical acclaim; she would go on to write a further six novellas including Like Birds in the Wilderness and A Working Mother. Her short stories were collected and published by Polygon. She died in 2014.

William Letford has worked as a roofer, on and off, since he was fifteen years old. He has received a New Writer’s Award from the Scottish Book Trust and an Edwin Morgan Travel Bursary which allowed him to spend three months in the mountains of northern Italy helping to restore a medieval village. He has an M.Litt in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow.