Develop your skills in writing poetry and fiction and enhance your knowledge of twentieth and twenty-first century literature on this exciting and rewarding course, taught by award–winning writers.
Our MA in Creative Writing is an exciting and rewarding course, taught with academic rigour by award-winning writers. It will help sharpen your practical knowledge of writing poetry and prose fiction and develop your knowledge and understanding of twentieth and twenty-first century literature.
The teaching and research provided offers a combination of conceptual and theoretical reflection, analysis of historical and cultural contexts, pays close attention to literary texts and primary sources, and enables the imaginative creation of new writing.
You will be supported with writing workshops and one-to-one tutorials where you will be encouraged to express and develop your own ideas. You will be based in an environment where your curiosity and imagination as well as your intellectual discipline and the individual nature of your responses is respected and valued.
Alongside the teaching modules you will have access to an extensive events programme, which includes the sharing of work and expertise by leading researchers and writers.
We are one of the most well-regarded English departments in the country. We are, in addition, one of few English departments in the world to teach and research in literature produced in Britain from the early medieval period to the present day as well as in anglophone literature from across the globe.
Consequently, with the learning opportunities provided by the department’s world-leading scholars, our course will give you the freedom to study broadly or to specialise, but always within a support structure where you will always be able to develop your own creative writing ideas.
Course Structure
All the MA programmes offered by the Faculty of Arts & Humanities consist of three components:
a Major Research Project to the value of at least 60 credits
Core Modules to the value of 0-90 credits, depending on the programme
Elective Modules, making up the total number of credits to 180; some of these modules will be defined as Recommended Electives for particular programmes.
For students studying the MA in Creative Writing, the Research Project (60 credits) is an extended critical essay on a subject of your own choosing and a portfolio of creative work, consisting of new works written after you have completed the workshop-style modules. You will be steered in your choice of essay topic by the module convenor. Exploring a particular subject in depth, it will encourage the development of sophisticated argument, the marshalling of evidence, the reading of the relevant criticism and contextual material, and the appropriate high level of bibliographical and presentational skills.
You will also be required to choose one from the following two core modules below:
Creative Writing Poetry (30 credits)
Creative Writing Prose Fiction (30 credits)
Finally, you will choose 90 credits of elective modules from across the Faculty of Arts & Humanities, so that your total number of credits adds up to exactly 180.
The course can be taken in one year on a full-time basis or over two years in a part-time format within a structure that is varied and effective and able to nurture creative and imaginative work.
Learning is carried out in small group tutorials, lectures, seminars and one-to-one sessions when you will gain a thorough grounding in the genres, forms, histories and cultures of literature in English, with opportunities to specialise.
You will choose one of two core creative writing modules, in which you will be required to write longer pieces within your chosen literary discipline and share your work. You will also undertake a major research project, which will provide you with the opportunity to produce an extended essay that you identify and research yourself.
You will receive feedback and listen to suggestions about your work, and you will also be expected to contribute to the small group sessions by giving your own feedback.
Assessment
Assessment on the course is rigorous and very much focused, as you would expect, on your written work.
You will be expected to produce essays, a portfolio of poetry or prose fiction as well as an extended essay for your research project.
We also want to understand how you see yourself and your own work so there will also be an assessment based on a self-critique.
Entry requirements
Students are usually required to have an Honours Degree at 2:1 level or higher or overseas equivalent from a recognised national or international university.
Students should submit a sample of 4-6 poems or 2,000 words of fiction.
The tuition fees for 2025/26 academic year have not yet been finalised, they will be displayed here once approved.
The tuition fees shown are for one complete academic year of study, are set according to the academic year of entry, and remain the same throughout the duration of the programme for that cohort (unless otherwise stated).
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