MA in Creative Writing

What are the key features of the course?

  • Creative Writing offers a practical training in the craft of writing
  • You are encouraged to explore the possibilities of working in both poetry and prose
  • Writing workshops provide a forum for group discussion You will take a core module on narratology and poetics, which illuminates the theoretical approach to writing
  • You may be able to take up to two other relevant modules from the existing list of modules offered on the MA programmes in the Department of English
  • The Writing Portfolio is central – you are encouraged to produce your own work throughout the course, providing the experience of sustained long-term personal engagement with a major writing task. Regular individual tutorials are dedicated to your own portfolio
  • Creative Writing is available either part-time (over two years), or as a one year full time degree
  • Teaching will be provided by the core Creative Writing tutors (see below) working in collaboration with other members of the Department and specialists from the world of publishing.

The Writing Portfolio

The portfolio is a means of building sustainable writing practices that encourage planning, reflection, revision, and completion of material. The format will enable students to include successive drafts of a piece of writing, recording aims and intentions, and explaining and reflecting upon successive modifications. There will be space for tutors’ comments, and students’ responses to these.

How is the course organised?

In common with the Department’s other MAs, this one has a modular structure. Each module comprises five weeks of study with a weekly two-hour group meeting, and provision for tutorial consultation.
Students will take six taught modules in all. Full-time students will take three modules per semester, and part-time students three modules per year. In addition, students will produce a "Writing Portfolio", equivalent to the dissertation element of other MA courses, across one year for full-time, and two years for part-time students
 
Structure of the MA in Creative Writing

Your application

As well as your application forms, you should send us a letter of application. This letter (between 1 and 2 sides of A4) should explain why you want to enrol on the course. It should include a brief account of your creative work to date, touching on relevant literary issues as appropriate - you might mention, for example, the authors who have influenced you, or themes and ideas of particular significance to you. The account will be important in helping us to arrive at a decision about your general suitability for the programme. 

You should also submit a small amount of creative work, written during the past three years. This should be one of the following:

  • five or six poems of not more than 40 lines each, or
  • two prose pieces of 1,500 to 2,000 words each, or
  • one prose passage of 3,000 to 4,000 words in total

Please be sure to keep a copy of any work you send. If your work has been published we should like to see a copy in its published form; this will be returned