The MA in Creative Writing at Kent offers you the opportunity to study fiction and poetry (exclusively or together) along with new optional modules in translation and writing and the environment. Designed with serious, ambitious writers in mind, our programme uses seminars, tutorials, workshops, and precise editing to enable you to take control of your own work and write exciting, contemporary material.

You are taught exclusively by members of our permanent creative writing team, all of whom are practising, award-winning writers: Patricia Debney, David Flusfeder, David Herd, Jan Montefiore, Amy Sackville, Simon Smith and Scarlett Thomas. (See staff research interests for further details.)

The School offers a number of distinct MA programmes, and plays a central role in the interdisciplinary MA in Medieval and Early Modern Studies.
The English MA literature programmes aim to increase your knowledge of the key elements that make up the complex nature of English and American literature and culture. The programmes give a wider and deeper understanding of the writers and areas studied, encourage you to probe the theoretical and scholarly issues which you could explore in further research, and offer opportunities to develop your creative writing.
Each MA programme consists of four taught modules and a 12-15,000 word dissertation or equivalent. You must get satisfactory results in your taught modules before going on to spend the final third of your MA course writing a dissertation on a topic of your choice. On the Creative Writing MA the dissertation is replaced with a creative writing project in which a collection of poems or a substantial work of fiction will be produced.
As a basis for work on your dissertation and advanced research, you are also required to take the School and Faculty research methods programmes.
Availability of modules
Not all modules listed here necessarily run every year. Please consult the School for details of availability.

Course content

You are encouraged to put together an MA programme that suits you and your plans. It is a requirement of the programme that you take either Fiction 1 and Fiction 2 or Poetry 1 and Poetry 2. After that the choice is yours. You may choose to take only creative modules, or to augment your study with a module from the literature programmes or from other Humanities programmes.

Assessment

You will take a total of four modules, for which you will produce approximately 8,000 words each (or an equivalent number of poems or translations). In addition, you will write a creative dissertation of about 15,000 words.

T: +44 (0)1227 827272
E: information@kent.ac.uk

School of English, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NX, UK
T: +44 (0)1227 823054
E: english-office@kent.ac.uk

Scarlett Thomas
School of English, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NX, UK
T: +44 (0)1227 827290
E: s.thomas@kent.ac.uk

Dr Caroline Rooney
School of English, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NX, UK
T: +44 (0)1227 827948
E: c.r.rooney@kent.ac.uk

Dr Catherine Richardson
School of English, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NX, UK
T: +44 (0)1227 824656
E: c.t.richardson@kent.ac.uk

Before applying, please read our ‘How to apply’ section.

You can then go straight to the online application form by clicking the programme below:

• MA

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