Creative Writing – (M.A.)

The MA in Creative Writing is concerned with imaginative writing, which includes novels, short stories, poetry and script-writing. The emphasis is upon encouragement, to help you to find and pursue a direction in your writing, and to understand the process of offering a manuscript for publication.

Because of the reputation of the MA in Creative Writing, we are able to recruit excellent students who, every year, form an exciting and mutually supportive community of writers. Frequent visits by other writers, literary agents, publishers, broadcasters and other professionals connected with writing ensure that students are given plentiful advice about how to place work and make decisions about their careers as writers.

The course is not for the writer whose only interest is in their own work, but rather for the writer who can benefit from working closely with fellow students and with tutors, many of whom are practising and published writers. In recent years, eight current or former students have been awarded excellent contracts for novels; one student reached the best-seller lists, and one received a W H Smith New Talent Award and one was long-listed for the Orange Prize.

Student poets have had their poetry accepted for publication in numerous literary journals, including Ambit, Magma, London Magazine, Poetry Wales, PN Review and The Reader, among others, and have been placed in such competitions as the Bridport, the Frogmore, Mslexia, and Writers Inc. Janklow & Nesbit, a leading literary agency, awards an annual prize for the best novel or novel in progress by a student on the course.

It is implicit in the course philosophy that critical reading aids the development of writers. Workshops, in which you look constructively at each other's writing, and context modules, to study the ways in which writers meet certain challenges, are integral parts of the course.