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MA - Master of Arts
Keele University
Full Time
Sep 2027
1 Year
Study creative writing at Keele and you’ll join a thriving, close-knit and passionate community of academics, published writers, students and researchers. We share the same goals: to develop our creative and professional skills as a writer, build connections, support and inspire each other. Many of our graduates – ‘Keelites’ – have gone on to become successful novelists, authors, biographers and poets, including Stoke’s first poet laureate and winner of the Roy Fisher Prize. They’ve helped set up community-based literary festivals, artist in residence initiatives and even brought poetry to the masses via a car boot sale and a travelling ambulance.In our modern, uncertain and ever-changing world, words – written or spoken – are needed perhaps now more than ever to help us share experiences, process thoughts and feelings, and fuel our imagination.The MA Creative Writing course at Keele brings together a strong community of published and aspiring writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and storytelling who, like you, appreciate the potential power of words and have embarked on a journey of self-expression.You’ll be taught and mentored by published writers, prize-winning poets and novelists, both from here within the University and from the active participation of invited guests, for example, at the fortnightly Keele Creative Writing Anthology. Last year, this included acclaimed writer Okechukwu Nzelu, whose first book won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Polari First Book Prize.You’ll also have the option to participate directly in a wide range of on campus, online and local events, publications, workshops and short courses. This provides experience in event management, curation, reading, presenting and even teaching, as well as the reviewing and editing that is often a writer’s secondary source of income.Graduates of this course include: Chris Prendergast, whose debut novel was published to high acclaim by Salt in 2014; Deborah Alma, whose ‘Emergency Poet’ project has received international press coverage; and Liz Lefroy, who won the first Roy Fisher Prize in 2001, an award for new poetry endorsed by the Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.The MA provides an excellent foundation for further doctoral (PhD) training or academia, here in the UK, Europe or the rest of the world. The excellent communication skills you develop can open doors to careers in publishing, culture, heritage, marketing, public relations or copywriting.
This compulsory module considers the critical process of reading other writers? work, looking at what influences our writing and the impact of the cultural context in which writers live and work. Examining the relationship between writing and different modes of literary and cultural criticism, you will study contemporary examples of script, poetry and fiction, alongside ?critical? texts like Walter Benjamin's "Unpacking My Library" and Cora Kaplan's "The Thorn Birds". You?ll be encouraged to consider ways in which critics write and writers critique, presenting on key areas of debate in contemporary culture, as well as the critical questions thrown up in your own research and work. You will produce a critical 3,500-word essay on any topic relating to contemporary literature or culture, involving literary or cultural criticism or both. Past topics have included, poetry and location, autobiography and culture, fashion and femininity, and have included semi-autobiographical elements, fictional dialogues, and philosophical speculation.
Equivalent to the dissertation-level project on traditional degree programmes, your final submission is the development of a portfolio of original writing to a professional standard. The module is taught through a series of regular individual and/or small group supervision meetings which enable you to review your progress, discuss your ideas, writing plans and structure, and get advice on reading, research and writing. You are required to produce either a complete piece of written work or a substantial component, such as a collection of poetry or short stories, a short novel, or a substantial part of a longer novel.
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