At the heart of the Manchester Writing School are our masters programmes in Creative Writing, available to study on campus in Manchester, City of Literature, or from anywhere in the world as part of our dynamic international online distance learning community.
On our Master of Arts (MA) Creative Writing programme, you will explore and practice techniques and styles of modern and contemporary writing and apply these through the development of your own creative work. You will undertake a taught element blending writing workshops with reading modules and option modules, and then complete your studies through submission of an extended piece of writing from a proposed full-length book or script.
You will specialise in one of the following routes: Novel (including Short Fiction), Poetry, Writing for Children & Young Adults, Scriptwriting (for stage, screen or radio) or Creative Non-Fiction.
The MA is available to complete in one year full-time or two years part-time. The novel and poetry routes are available to study on campus (full-time or part-time) or online (part-time only). The writing for children and creative non-fiction routes are online (part-time) only. The scriptwriting route is available to study on campus only. We have intakes to the programme in September and January each year.
You can also choose to pursue our MFA Creative Writing masters.
See our website for entry requirements.
See our website for fees.
More than 100 of our students and graduates have embarked upon publishing careers, launching first books, with others achieving publication in journals and magazines, winning writing awards and prizes, and setting up small presses and anthologies, and seeing their work go into production and performance. Our alumni include winners of the Costa First Novel Award, Forward Poetry Prize and Yale Windham-Campell Prize, and a long-listing for the Man Booker Prize.
Our School plays a leading role in establishing Manchester as a city of writers with a commitment to finding diverse new voices and creating opportunities for writer development, enabling new writing and building audiences for the next generation of talent. Manchester has been designated a UNESCO City of Literature in recognition of its thriving live literature scene, with a year-round programme of author events, writers’ forums, networking opportunities and open mic nights.
We are home to a suite of ground-breaking outreach projects including the Manchester Children’s Book Festival and Mother Tongue Other Tongue, an international multilingual poetry competition that celebrates cultural diversity and the many languages spoken in schools in the UK. Our Manchester Poetry Library holds over 12,000 books and recordings that can be explored through our online catalogue, in person and through our annual events programme. Our School has a strong Manchester presence, with links to many of the city’s major cultural and arts organisations, and also a global reach with students and alumni based across the UK and continental Europe, and in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australasia.
Our strong partnerships and innovative projects mean that you will have plenty of opportunities to develop your industry experience and network.
On completion of this course you may decide to pursue PhD study, or to develop a career in bookselling, agenting, publishing, editing, producing or directing for screen, stage or radio, or in teaching creative writing. You will have access to the Careers and Employability Hub located in the Business School at Manchester Met, offering a host of information resources, one-to-one careers support, and employability events throughout the year. This service is also available for up to three years after you graduate.
Classes for core Workshop and Reading units take place in the evenings (6-8pm UK time) during the autumn and spring semesters. Full-time students take all of their units in a single year and usually have classes two evenings per week. Part-time students spread these units over two years (study pattern may vary depending on specialist route) and usually have classes one evening per week. All students also take a 30-credit option module and can choose from a range of Creative Writing modules, or modules from our MA English Studies or MA Publishing courses. The MA concludes with the submission of the Creative Dissertation, completed through independent study with one-to-one support from a Dissertation Supervisor.
Core modules:
Creative Dissertation
Reading 1
The Workshop
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