MA Creative Writing
Course options
Key Details
- Attendance
- Full Time
- Award
- Degree of Master of Arts
- Course Length
- 1 year
- Course Start Date
- January 2025
Why you should choose us
Course Overview
UEA pioneered the teaching of Creative Writing more than 50 years ago and is globally regarded as a leader of the subject. UEA has mentored countless award-winning authors, including Booker Prize winners Ian McEwan, Anne Enright, and Nobel Laureate Sir Kazuo Ishiguro.
But today Creative Writing is changing, and so are we. Stories are now adapted from novels to streaming platforms to games and so much more. Digital technologies and AI are reshaping writing's possibilities and practical applications. Exciting fusion genres from authors across the globe are dominating bestseller lists and streaming platforms. Career opportunities in the creative industries across the world are increasingly vibrant and ever more dynamic.
This Creative Writing Master’s course will equip you to engage with this world and its vast audiences, now and in the future. You'll have the unique opportunity to work across different forms of writing to help you discover and enhance your talent. You'll explore prose fiction and non-fiction, script and poetry, and hybrid, multimodal, and cross-genre writing. You'll also have the opportunity to develop all kinds of industry-oriented genre writing, from speculative fiction to young adult, fantasy to historical. You'll learn how AI and digital technology are transforming our ideas of writing and writers. You'll also find opportunities to experiment with writing for multiple digital realities and platforms, which are widely accessible and easily integrated. Most of all, you’ll develop skills to get noticed, published and build an audience in this digital world.
At the same time, you'll benefit from UEA's established teaching excellence, creative writing workshops, and unrivalled connections with the fast-changing publishing industry in the UK and beyond. You'll become part of the university’s vibrant creative writing ecosystem, with events such as UEA Live, research and internship opportunities in the British Archive for Contemporary Writing, and a host of more informal occasions to share and celebrate your work and hear from prize-winning alumni. You’ll study in the historic city of Norwich, one of UNESCO’s Cities of Literature. You'll benefit from UEA's exceptional expertise in the world-wide breadth and history of literature, building your confidence and authority as a writer.
You'll graduate a respected and versatile writer, steeped in practical and professional knowledge. You might translate that experience into a career in the creative industries, such as publishing and editing, writing for advertising, marketing, arts, culture, heritage and GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) sector organisations, VR and XR experiences, digital gaming, streaming TV, and more. You may be embarking on a new writing career, or you may be an established professional looking to upskill in a changing environment. Perhaps you want to understand more about writing and feel the thrill of seeing your work come together on page or screen. Whatever your ambitions, this course will inspire and enable you to discover your own voice and make the most of it in the next stage in your writer’s journey.
This version of the course gives you the flexible opportunity to begin your journey in January.
Study and Modules
Structure
This is a year-long course. You'll take two taught modules each semester, and then over the Autumn you'll complete your dissertation (submitted late January) with the support of your supervisor.
In the Spring semester, you'll take a Creative Writing workshop where you'll establish a competency and confidence across genres. By the end of the semester, you might decide to specialise in a single form and genre, or to continue a path of versatility and hybrid experimentation.
Alongside this Spring semester module, you'll choose from a rich range of optional modules across the School and Faculty. These draw especially on the wealth of knowledge and experience of the School's literary critics, and currently include modules on writing and play (which encourages your own playful experiments in writing), contemporary fiction, or how writing is inspired by place. These modules will help put your own writing into context and provide you with touchstones for your own creations.
In the Autumn semester, you'll take a second Creative Writing workshop in which you'll explore and experiment with a range of forms of writing, developing an understanding of your potential as a writer.
At the same time and in dialogue with this module, you'll also be studying the ways digital technology is reshaping writing. This may in turn inspire your creative workshop, leading you to work with multimodal forms or interactive narratives. By the end of the semester, you'll have a firm sense of the exciting potential of writing for new technologies and have begun to incorporate that potential into your writer’s toolkit.
Beginning in the summer and continuing throughout the Autumn, you'll begin the thrilling culmination of your MA – your creative writing dissertation. You'll be supported by a member of our Creative Writing team as you write your project, which will become your calling-card as a writer and help to launch the next phase of your career.
Compulsory Modules
OPTIONAL A MODULES
(Credits: 20)Whilst the University will make every effort to offer the modules listed, changes may sometimes be made arising from the annual monitoring, review and update of modules. Where this activity leads to significant (but not minor) changes to programmes and their constituent modules, the University will endeavour to consult with students and others. It is also possible that the University may not be able to offer a module for reasons outside of its control, such as the illness of a member of staff. In some cases optional modules can have limited places available and so you may be asked to make additional module choices in the event you do not gain a place on your first choice. Where this is the case, the University will inform students.
Teaching and Learning
Throughout the course, you'll benefit from UEA's unrivalled Creative Writing tuition and literary critical expertise. Expert creative writers will both lead your workshops and supervise your dissertation, helping to mentor you as you find your voice as a writer. You'll encounter leading practitioners of many of the forms you'll explore – novelists, scriptwriters, poets – who will help you to hone your craft and give their tips and insights into success in each genre.
Literature tutors will introduce you to traditions of writing from across the globe, helping you to interpret them and put them into context. But they'll also support you in your own creative experimentation. UEA has many years of experience pioneering forms of 'creative-critical' pedagogy, where you’re invited to demonstrate your critical thinking and understanding through writing creatively. In this exciting environment, creative and critical thinking are often fused together.
Finally, your encounters with contemporary creative digital technology will be facilitated by our cutting-edge BLOC resources. These include our Music and Media Suite, which offers facilities for podcasting, digital design and publishing, audio production, and access to a host of creative software. These facilities are also supported by a superb team of professional technicians who will support you as you discover new creative abilities.
Assessment
Over the course of the MA, you’ll build and develop your portfolio of writing. At the end of each of the workshops you'll submit work which demonstrates your growing versatility, craft, and experience as a writer. In your module focused on digital writing, you’ll also be assessed on the underlying writing you produce for a digital form – this could be writing for a podcast, game, XR experience, or even a combination of forms. Your optional module may invite you to write a literary critical essay, further creative work, or an experimental creative-critical piece. Finally, your dissertation will bring your whole creative journey together, where you’ll produce an original piece of 12-15,000 words in length (or equivalent weight, in your chosen form(s)). This piece will be a reflection of the writer you’ve become. It may demonstrate your growing mastery of a single form – a substantial extract from a work of genre fiction, for instance – or it may show off your dexterity in moving across forms. You may also choose to focus on the digital side of your degree, producing writing for multimodal platforms, such as digital gaming or immersive VR experience.
Entry Requirements
- This course is open to
UK and International fee-paying students. Choose UK or International above to see relevant information. The entry points are in January and September each year.
- Typical UK Entry Requirements
Degree classification
Bachelors degree - 2.2
Degree Subject
Any subject
- Additional Entry Requirements
Candidates are required to submit a portfolio of writing for assessment with their application of 2500-3000 words in length. This could be part of a novel, non-fiction prose, script, poetry, a combination of short pieces from multiple forms, or a hybrid piece which combines forms together.
- Admissions Policy
Our Admissions Policy applies to the admissions of all postgraduate applicants.
- This course is open to
UK and International fee-paying students. Choose UK or International above to see relevant information. The entry points are in January and September each year.
- Typical International Entry Requirements
Degree classification
UK Bachelors degree - 2.2 or equivalent
Degree Subject
Any subject
- Additional Entry Requirements
Candidates are required to submit a portfolio of writing for assessment with their application of 2500-3000 words in length. This could be part of a novel, non-fiction prose, script, poetry, a combination of short pieces from multiple forms, or a hybrid piece which combines forms together.
- English Foreign Language
Applications from students whose first language is not English are welcome. We require evidence of proficiency in English (including writing, speaking, listening and reading):
IELTS: 6.5 overall (minimum 6 in all areas)
We also accept a number of other English language tests. Review our English Language Equivalencies for a list of example qualifications that we may accept to meet this requirement.
Test dates should be within two years of the course start date.
If you do not meet the English language requirements for this course, INTO UEA offer a variety of English language programmes which are designed to help you develop the required English skills.
- Admissions Policy
Our Admissions Policy applies to the admissions of all postgraduate applicants.
Fees and Funding
Tuition fees for the Academic Year 2024/25 are:
-
UK Students: £9,975 (full time)
-
International Students: £21,200 (full time)
If you choose to study part-time, the fee per annum will be half the annual fee for that year, or a pro-rata fee for the module credit you are taking (only available for Home students).
We estimate living expenses at £1,023 per month.
Further Information on tuition fees can be found here.
Scholarships and Bursaries
The University of East Anglia offers a range of Scholarships; please click the link for eligibility, details of how to apply and closing dates.
Course Related Costs
Please see Additional Course Fees for details of course-related costs.
How to Apply
How to apply
Applications for Postgraduate Taught programmes at the University of East Anglia should be made directly to the University.
To apply please use our online application form.
Further information
If you would like to discuss your individual circumstances prior to applying, please do contact us:
Postgraduate Admissions Office
Tel: +44 (0)1603 591515
Email: admissions@uea.ac.uk
International candidates are also encouraged to access the International Students section of our website.
Employability
After the Course
You'll graduate as a confident creative writer, with an understanding of genre, audience, and the craft needed to shape writing. You'll also have a strong awareness of the contemporary writer's world, and the digital dexterity needed to navigate it. This may lead to a career as a successful novelist or scriptwriter. You'll also be ready for careers across the creative industries: in publishing and journalism; marketing; roles in the arts, culture, heritage and GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) sectors; writing for digital gaming and the creative computing sectors. The creative confidence our courses give graduates has also underpinned successful business entrepreneurship. Graduates from our Creative Writing MA courses go on to careers in teaching or undertake PhDs (including UEA's own creative-critical PhDs). Many also undertake our courses for the profound pleasure and sense of achievement given by writing itself.
Careers
Examples of careers that you could enter include:
- Novelist/Scriptwriter
- Publishing or Journalism
- Marketing
- Arts/GLAM-sector roles
- Writing for digital gaming or creative computing sectors
- Teaching or Academic careers
Discover more on our Careers pages.