St Mary's University Twickenham, London

BA (Hons) Creative and Professional Writing

At St Mary's University, we promote an interdisciplinary approach to the Humanities and this is an important and unique part of our offer.

Unlike other Humanities degrees, if your choose to study Creative and Professional Writing at St Mary's you can expand your knowledge by exploring modules across English, History, Liberal Arts, Theology, Film and Politics.

Year one

• Current Writers and Writing
• Introduction to Narrative
• Rethinking Modernity
• The Public Role of the Arts and Humanities
• Introduction to Critical Theory
• Film, Style and Form
• Digital Cultures
• Media History
• Doing History
• Revolutions and Rebellions
• London Theatre
• What is Politics?
• Introduction to International Relations
• Digital Production
• British Film and TV
• Foundations in Biblical Interpretation
• Key Concepts in World Religions
• Fundamentals of Systematic Theology
• The Nature of Religion
• Introduction to Ethics

Year two

• Writing Genre Fiction
• The Publishing Industry
• Journalism 1: News Writing
• Writing Lyrics and Poetry
• Curating London
• Gothic Cultures 1760-1900
• Romanticism: English Literature and its Background 1776-1832
• Narrative and Identity in the 19th Century Novel
• Screenwriting 1
• North American Cinema
• Screen Theory and Criticism
• Documentary and World Cinema
• Multimedia Production
• Working with the Liberal Arts
• Researching the Liberal Arts
• Liberty or Death: The French Revolution
• Australia: Great Southern Land
• Public Histories
• Popular Culture, Politics and History
• Theory, Practice and History of Diplomacy
• Political Economy of Global Development
• Modernity and Global Societies
• Research Methods in Social Sciences
• God in Christ
• Religion and Reason
• Ecclesiology
• Medieval Islamic Thought
• Religion in Contemporary Society
• Bioethics
• Theological Anthropology
• The Aspiring Entrepreneur
• Responsible Leadership in the 21st Century
• An Interdisciplinary Encounter With the Sacred

Year three

• Creative Non-Fiction
• Writing Adaptations
• Young Adult and Children’s Fiction
• Dissertation/Independent Project
• Renaissance Kingship
• Modernisms in English Literature
• The Paradox of Horror
• Screenwriting 2
• Global Media
• Political Communication
• Hindu Texts
• Metaethics
• Christian Ethics
• Christian Spirituality
• Ecclesiology and Mariology

How the degree is taught

Teaching methods

You'll be taught on our beautiful and historic campus located in Twickenham, London.

The Creative and Professional Writing programme is taught by means of lectures, seminars, workshops and individual tutorials. Enthusiastic student participation is essential to success in the programme.

Students are encouraged to start creative writing at a very early stage in the course and to regularly share their work with colleagues. There are opportunities for collaborative projects and developing skills in constructive criticism of creative work. Jonathan Gibbs (Programme Director, Creative & Professional Writing) has written an article on the role of the short story in teaching creative writing.

Class sizes range from 15 to 35 students, depending on the module.

Teaching breakdown

Learning on the course is made up through a combination of:

• Contact time: 18%
• Independent study: 82%

Independent study is a key feature of your degree and is crucial to furthering your knowledge.

You will receive your timetable a week before teaching is due to start at the latest.

Assessment methods

With no exams, the programme - by its very nature - places a premium on practical exercises, coursework and projects, so skills will be assessed by a diverse range of methods.

Modules are assessed on the basis of creative writing portfolios, course workbooks and presentations. Attendance and active participation in writing workshops is essential aspect of assessment for some modules. All assessment is coursework based, with no examinations.

In the final year of the programme, it's possible for you to be assessed in large part on lengthier-scale projects. These will be produced within the framework of a special study or portfolio, under the close supervision of a specialist tutor.

Feedback

We adhere to the university’s policy of providing feedback on assessments within three weeks.

Our goal on the St Mary’s Creative and Professional Writing programme is threefold:

• To help students develop into the writers they want to be;
• To hone the core writing skills that will give them an entry into the jobs marketplace in the creative and many other industries;
• To give them a general introduction to the diverse publishing world and literary scene in the UK and beyond.

There's no snobbery in the teaching of creative writing at St Mary’s. We're open to all kinds of writers with a wide array of interests, from science fiction to screenplays and from rap to romance. We recognise that the way we read and write is changing, and we try to reflect on new developments, from social media to video game writing. You tell us what you want to write and we will help you to write it as well as you can.

In the Creative and Professional Writing programme, we expect you to read and write. A lot. We give students regular writing exercises to guide them towards their assignments, and we encourage wide reading.

Most of the set texts on the course are contemporary – from the last 20 years – so that students learn how people are writing now. Much of what they read is very recent. We want our students to be up to date on what is happening in the creative writing world now.

At St Mary's we are friendly and supportive and get to know our students very well. We operate an open-door policy in the department, and are always ready to meet students to discuss their writing and their reading inside and outside the course. There is a lively Professional and Creative Arts Society, and regular informal reading evenings, where students share work with each other.

Our teachers are all practising, published novelists, poets and writers. There are fantasy and horror writing experts, acclaimed book critics and literary novelists, international journalists and TV scriptwriters.

Our students go onto a wide range of graduate-level careers and postgraduate studies. There are challenging career opportunities in publishing, journalism, advertising, the media, editing and creative writing, teaching.

The programme is useful for all careers. We teach critical skills as well as those transferrable skills of being able to write well and articulate ideas, as well as gain confidence in advanced communicative skills. It is excellent preparation if you would like to pursue further specialised training at the postgraduate level and is increasingly valued in a wide variety of professions.