MA Creative Writing

Overview

Creative writing is learned through practice, feedback, and reading widely. Durham University's MA offers fiction, memoir, and narrative non-fiction workshops with small cohorts and faculty who are published authors. You will produce a portfolio of polished work, study craft through published exemplars, and learn publishing pathways including agents, self-publishing, and digital media. Edinburgh's literary heritage informs the programme ethos. MA Creative Writing is taught as one award, not a list of unrelated modules. The published length is 24 months, and the credit total is 36. Students move from Fiction Workshop I through Fiction Workshop I; Reading as a Writer; Narrative Non-Fiction; Poetry & Hybrid Forms; Fiction Workshop II; Memoir & Life Writing, and finish on Major Creative Project. Each course has a question, a method, and a submission. In this field, students apply the method of the subject to a defined problem and defend the result. Reading is a core text, a case or dataset, and a critique. The artefact a marker expects is a submission that shows the method, the evidence, and the limit of the claim. The award is built so that a graduate can do the following in practice: Produce a portfolio of revised creative work Give and receive constructive workshop critique Analyse narrative structure, voice, and point of view Teaching assumes the student can read a source, attempt a problem before the seminar, and revise after feedback. Attendance at live seminars is part of the design. The capstone or final course must use the methods of the earlier courses; a project that ignores them does not pass. The pages for each course name the topics that are examined. Those topics are the syllabus. A brochure line is not a substitute for them.

Who This Programme Is For

• ✦Aspiring novelists and short-story writers
• ✦Journalists moving into long-form narrative
• ✦Marketing leaders strengthening storytelling craft

Programme Structure & Delivery

Learning Outcomes

• ✦Produce a portfolio of revised creative work
• ✦Give and receive constructive workshop critique
• ✦Analyse narrative structure, voice, and point of view
• ✦Navigate publishing, copyright, and author platforms
• ✦Write to brief for editorial and brand contexts

Career Pathways

• ✦Author
• ✦Editor
• ✦Content Strategist
• ✦Journalist
• ✦Communications Director

Curriculum