Overview

Whether you want to join the traditional publishing industry, establish your own small press or set up a single-author imprint for your own novels, this fully-customisable course will prepare you for work in these increasingly entwined growth industries.

• Our MA Creative Writing course has been taken by many successful published writers (.pdf), including Costa Short Story winner Caroline Ward Vine, Penny Hancock, and Kaddy Benyon.
• Study on the only Creative Writing and Publishing course in the Eastern region.
• Customise the course to suit your personal or professional ambitions.
• Get valuable feedback on your writing from other students as well as lecturers.
• Gain key insights to publishing practice and international / digital rights.
• Benefit from our industry connections, with talks, workshops and other events featuring leading figures in writing and publishing.
• Attend our publishing short courses for a discounted fee (when available).

Modern publishing takes place in many different sectors, from the traditional literary press to the digital frontiers of app development and game design. Authors are no longer insulated from business concerns - even ‘Big 5’ publishers expect authors to build their own platforms and audiences, manage their own social media, interpret sales and negotiate an increasingly complex range of international and digital rights.

Our MA Creative Writing and Publishing will allow you to develop your own fiction writing in a supportive environment while giving you a systematic and detailed understanding of the changing nature of publishing organisations and their processes in a global digital environment.

In our Creative Writing workshops, you will get feedback on your writing from other students as well as from our experienced teaching team, giving you a unique perspective on how your work is read by different audiences.

You will take one core module, Readers and Reading Practices, where you will discover key theories and apply them to the writing and publication of creative works. Supported by your personal tutor, you will design your path through the MA syllabus yourself from our optional modules, based on the particular future you have in mind.

The customisation does not stop with module choice. Each module on our MA will give you space for self-directed learning and choice in terms of project work and individual research. You will select the topics of most relevance to you and your future career.

Throughout the course, you can get advice and support from our team of specialists, including many published fiction writers. Our Royal Literary Fund Fellows will also give you feedback on your writing, as well as advice on publishing.

Course Leader: Laura Dietz

Our MA Creative Writing and Publishing will prepare you for employment in whichever aspect of the writing and publishing industries most interests you. Throughout the course, you will develop many transferable academic and professional skills, including self-reflection, critical analysis, and working to briefs and deadlines, as well as the research skills necessary for producing creative works, professional publishing documents and critical writing.

Many of our previous MA Creative Writing students have achieved successful careers in publishing or writing, including Costa Short Story winner 2019 Caroline Ward Vine; Guinevere Glasfurd (winner of The Times 'Book of the Month' for her debut novel The Words In My Hand); Penny Hancock (Tideline; The Darkening Hour) and Natalya Anderson (winner of the Bridport Prize for Poetry 2014).

Our MA Publishing graduates also have a track record of success, with most now in publishing-related careers at companies such as Bloomsbury, Wiley Capstone, Pearson, Cambridge University Press and Macmillan.

You might also decide to move on to a research degree after graduating, such as our PhD Creative Writing or PhD Publishing.