MA in Creative Writing - Distance Learning
- Kingston upon Thames, United Kingdom
- Kingston upon Thames, United Kingdom
MA
DURATION
2 years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time, Part time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2026
TUITION FEES
GBP 17,600 / per year **
STUDY FORMAT
Distance Learning
* there is no application deadline for postgraduate courses
** for international full-time | international part-time: 9,680 GBP/year | home full-time: 10,300 GBP/year | home part-time: 5,665 GBP/year
Key Summary
Delivered by Distance Learning and taught in virtual forums and classrooms, you will be able to ensure your studies suit your schedule.
You will join a thriving research department, which covers the following areas:
- 19th and 20th century British and American fiction
- Fictions of globalisation
- Modernism
- Gothic writing
- Travel writing
- Women's writing from the 18th century to the present
- New Woman and fin de siècle fictions
- Shakespeare
- Literature of the English Reformation period
- postcolonial studies
- Theories of gender
- Life writing and trauma
Why choose this course?
Our Creative Writing MA (Distance Learning) will enable you to study with a range of well-established and award-winning writers in a dynamic writing environment. All without having to relocate or give up current commitments.
Taught in our virtual forums and classrooms, new lessons from each module can be accessed at a time that’s convenient for you. You will learn in workshops, one-to-one or in small groups, with support from practising and published practitioners and fellow students.
You will practise writing in a range of forms and styles and take a module exploring critical theory and experimental/avant-garde writing. And your creative dissertation and critical essay will give you the chance to specialise further.
The non-compulsory campus days will give you a chance to visit the campus and attend a relevant lecture, as well as meet fellow Writers’ Workshop students. Those travelling longer distances who wish to stay longer are also welcome to attend events taking place on campus for the rest of the week, featuring staff, writers in residence, students and guests.
Throughout this course, you will become part of Kingston's thriving community, with events such as:
- a series of masterclasses with publishing specialists and professionals. These have included agents such as Briony Woods and Jemima Hunt, and researchers such as Hanif Kureishi and Paul Bailey
- weekly guest lectures from leading journalists. These include
- Samira Ahmed – an award-winning journalist with 20 years' experience in print and broadcast
- David Jenkins – editor of Little White Lies
- Richard Moynihan – Head of Digital Journalism, The Telegraph
- Alex Stedman – Fashion Blogger at The Frugality and former Style Editor at Red magazine
- Regular readings through Writers' Centre Kingston, which offers an annual programme of events from talks to workshops and festivals. These are hosted and curated in partnership with local institutions, such as The Rose Theatre, the Rich Mix Cultural Foundation, the Museum of Futures and Kingston First
- Regular philosophy lunchtime lectures, which focus on a major figure in the history of Western philosophy. These introduce students to that thinker's work, usually through the discussion of one of her or his emblematic works
You will also have the opportunity to contribute to Kingston University's publication, Ripple, which includes fiction, poetry, reviews and creative non-fiction and is edited by students on the course. This provides:
- a platform for the publication of creative work
- a chance to get hands-on experience of the publishing process
For students interested in studying Creative Writing MA (Distance Learning) at Kingston, there are several opportunities to seek funding support:
- Inspire the Future Scholarship
- International scholarships
- Progression Scholarship
- Discounts for Kingston University alumni
Course content
The Creative Writing MA (Distance Learning) follows the same course structure as the successful and popular Creative Writing MA. You'll be taught through individual tutorials, streamed lectures and readings held at or sponsored by the University.
The Writers' Workshop module will encourage you to develop your writing 'voice' through engagement with fellow students across a range of genres (in fiction or creative non-fiction), while the Special Study module enables you to specialise in one genre, such as fiction, non-fiction, poetry or drama.
You will learn the elements of fiction, poetry and drama as well as studying relevant critical theory and trying out your own fictional experiments in the Critical Challenges module. You'll take part in online masterclasses and put all you have learned into practice in the dissertation module. It is possible to use both workshop modules and the dissertation together to work towards a substantial part of a longer piece, such as a novel.
This Creative Writing MA will give you the knowledge and confidence to enter the cultural debate and to begin to identify outlets for your own writing.
Timetables
- Full-time students can attend two campus days, scheduled annually, usually in November and February.
- Part-time students normally attend the November campus day in the first year and the February campus day in the second year.
Modules
Full-time students take two 30-credit modules each semester, including a Special Study workshop on a particular genre, e.g. poetry, drama or fiction, in the second semester. You'll participate in general workshops, reading sessions and tutorials with your assigned dissertation supervisor throughout the course.
You may then choose to complete a 15,000-word 60-credit dissertation accompanied by a 3,000-word critical review, for which you'll receive one-to-one supervision as you work towards a September completion.
Core modules
- Creative Writing Dissertation
- Special Study: Workshops in Popular Genre Writing
- Writing the Contemporary
- Writers' Workshop
- Critical Challenges for Creative Writers
Some of our departmental graduates have achieved notable successes, having published short stories and novels which were started as part of their degree, and attracted good literary agents, for example:
- Oyinkan Braithwaite's novel, My Sister the Serial Killer, reviewed by The New Yorker and BBC Radio 4's Open Book and Front Row, has won the Crime and Thriller book of the year at the British Book Awards; Oyinkan is the first black woman to do so.
- Grainne Murphy has recently signed a two-book deal with Legend Press. Her debut novel, Where the Edge Is, was published in September 2020, with The Ghostlights to be published in 2021.
- Ben Halls' debut The Quarry was a book of the day in The Guardian in March 2020.
- Amy Clarke has signed a two-book deal. Like Clockwork is a psychological suspense novel about a true crime podcast host who's obsessively trying to solve the decades-old cold case of a notorious Minnesotan serial killer whose victims were each one year younger than the last. It is due to be published in March/April 2021 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, with a second book to follow.
- A story Seraphina Madsen wrote for the MA Critical Challenges module was published in the UK's pre-eminent literary journal, The White Review, and secured her an agent and a book deal.
- Stevan Alcock is another MA student whose debut novel – workshopped on our MA – was published by the 4th Estate.
- Hannah Vincent is a former MFA student with novels out with Myriad Editions and Salt.
- Myriad Editions also run a writing competition each year aimed at finding new writers, with MFA student Karly Stilling winning in 2015. This year the award was won by another current Kingston student, Sylvia Carr. Former MA (now a PhD student) Joseph Pierson was a recent runner-up.
- Julia Lewis is a former MFA student and experimental poet who has gone on to publish a wide range of works. She also rewrote MA tutor James Miller's novel Lost Boys as a collection of experimental poetry.
- Stefan Mohamed won the Dylan Thomas Prize and has gone on to have a successful career as a writer of YA fiction.
- MA student Vicky Newham signed a two-book deal for her crime series. Vicky is on the Daggers longlist for the best crime novel by a first-time author.
- Faiqa Mansab published her debut novel This House of Clay and Water in Pakistan and India to great acclaim and it has been optioned by the talented Sheherzade Sheikh for screen adaptation.
- Other successes include Susie Lynes and Lauren Forry.
- Other former students have gone on to work in editorial posts in the publishing industry.