BA (Hons) English Literature and Creative Writing
- Hatfield, United Kingdom
- East Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
BA
DURATION
4 years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
EARLIEST START DATE
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
Key Summary
"Due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, examinations may be replaced by an alternative form of assessment during the academic year 2021/2022. Please refer to the Programme Specification on these pages for further details."
Why choose this course?
We give you:
- An exciting and creative environment where you are taught by published writers
- The opportunity to hone your craft through supportive feedback from tutors and peers
- Modules that enhance your critical insight and enable you to put principle into practice
- A platform for publishing your work and a springboard for your future life as a published author
- An inspiring programme of visiting writers, workshops, readings, and masterclasses
What's the course about?
Do you have a story to tell, or have you always wanted to be a writer? Perhaps you want to learn how to be a critical reader or gain a greater understanding of the craft of writing.
Studying English Literature and Creative Writing with us will help you find your voice, whether as a poet, playwright, novelist, or scholar of literature.
This joint course combines the study of literature with the practice of creative writing. Studying literature will give you a greater understanding of how literary texts work, while this improved critical insight will help you put principles into practice in your own creative writing.
We offer a stimulating and supportive place in which to explore your ideas, hone your craft and understand literary texts. Our creative writing modules are taught by lecturers who are themselves award-winning practitioners and who bridge the gap between creative and academic approaches to literature. They include our poetry lecturer Wayne Holloway-Smith, winner of the Poetry Society’s Geoffrey Dearmer Prize and Seamus Heaney Prize nominee.
Over the three years, you can choose specialist creative writing modules in poetry, creative non-fiction, drama, short story writing, and prose fiction. Those specialisms are reflected in our English Literature modules, which range from children’s and young adult literature to film adaptations and work written in English from all over the world.
By the time you graduate, you will have a polished piece of work that has the potential for publication. Recent successes for our students include short stories published in Bandit and AnotherLenz magazines and poetry published in Rising and the international magazine Poetry London.
In your first year, an underpinning core module, Becoming a Writer, will introduce you to genres and forms and examine the universalities of dialogue, plot, and language. A second core module, Identity and Contemporary Writing, introduces you to some of the most exciting new writing as a model for your own work, while an optional module enables you to specialise in writing for the screen.
Work placement/study abroad option: Between your second and final year, you’ll have the option to study abroad or do a work placement for up to a year. Not only will this give you an amazing experience to talk about but will also give your CV a boost. If you’d rather go straight to your final year, that’s absolutely fine too.
The practicalities of getting published or working in literary publishing are explored in a creative writing module in your second year taught by a former editor of Granta, the renowned magazine of new writing. For your final year, your particular creative interest can be channeled into a long piece of writing, which can be poetry, prose, or drama.
Your main campus is de Havilland
You’ll share this campus with students from business, law, sport, education, and humanities subjects. The student housing is close to our Sports Village which includes a gym, swimming pool, and climbing wall. You can get breakfast, lunch, or dinner in our on-campus restaurant or bar (in the newly built Enterprise Hub) on days you don’t feel like cooking. You can also use the common room to play pool, video games or just to hang out with friends. Our Learning Resources Centres are open 24/7, which means you can study whenever suits you best. Want to pop over to the other campus? You can take the free shuttle bus or walk there in just 15 minutes.
This course includes the options of:
- Work placement
- Study abroad
Undergraduate Scholarships for UK and EU students
We offer a range of non-repayable scholarships recognising academic achievements and individual talents to support our students during their studies.
- Business
- Computer Science
- Education
- Engineering and Technology
- Health and Social Work
- Law
- Life and Medical Sciences
Scholarships for international students
We have invested hundreds of thousands of pounds in scholarships for high-achieving and enterprising students from around the world. We look for enterprising and aspirational students who want to excel in an international university.
Please be aware that you do not need to apply for the Chancellor's International Scholarship as we automatically assess your course application form alongside your supporting documents. If you are successful we will email you to confirm the amount you have been awarded.
You do not need to email us to apply or be considered.
September 2021 scholarship opportunities
Global scholarships
- Chancellor's International Scholarship
- Chevening Scholarship
- 20% Alumni Discount
- 20% Study Abroad Discount
- Sports Scholarships
Africa and the Middle East
- Gordon Memorial College Trust Fund
- Aga Khan Foundation
- Middle East Government Scholarships
- Qalaa Foundation
South Asia
- South Asian Government Scholarships
- Goa Education Trust scholarships
- Narotam Sekhsaria Foundation loan scholarships
- Aga Khan Foundation
East Asia and southeast Asia
- East & SE Asian Government Scholarships
- PETRONAS Education Scholarships
- LPDP (Indonesia Endowment for Education)
- Brunei Shell Petroleum scholarships
Europe and the Americas
- European/Americas Government Scholarships
- TUK-TAM Foundation
- Entente Cordiale scholarships
- SOCAR scholarships
- Bec.ar Scholarships
- Becas Chile (CONICYT)
- Colfuturo scholarships and loans
- CONACYT scholarships
- Santander Latin America Scholarships
- Fulbright Awards
What will I study?
Creative Writing is a practice-based discipline, with the opportunity to experiment by working in different forms. You’ll be taught in small groups in workshop spaces and will receive feedback from your tutors and your peers as you share your ideas, learn to edit and refine your work and develop your presentation and performance skills.
Our two resident poetry research fellows, Mark Waldron and Rachel Long offer masterclasses, workshops and give regular readings, adding to the vibrant and creative environment in which you’ll be working.
Level 4
- Becoming a Writer II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Genre Fiction: Building Worlds II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Writing for the Screen II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Texts Up Close: Reading and Interpretation II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Make it New: Literary Tradition and Experimentation II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Border Crossings: Modern Literature from around the World II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Shakespeare Reframed II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Identity and Contemporary Writing II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Journeys and Quests: Adventures in Literature II 15 Credits II Optional
- American Voices: Introduction to US Literature and Culture II 15 Credits II Optional
- Romantic Origins & Gothic Afterlives II 15 Credits II Optional
Level 5
- Graduate Skills II 0 Credits II Compulsory
- A Nation of Readers: British Identity and Enlightenment Culture II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature, 1900-1945 II 15 Credits II Optional
- American Literature to 1900 II 15 Credits II Optional
- Twentieth-Century North American Writing II 15 Credits II Optional
- Images of Contemporary Society: British Literature and the Politics of Identity II 15 Credits II Optional
- Writing for the Stage II 15 Credits II Optional
- Language and Imagination: The Art of the Poem II 15 Credits II Optional
- Writing for the Screen II 15 Credits II Optional
- Age of Transition: the Victorians and Modernity II 15 Credits II Optional
- Literature at Work II 15 Credits II Optional
- Revisiting the Renaissance II 15 Credits II Optional
Level 6
- Tell It Slant: Writing and Reality II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Short Story Workshop II 15 Credits II Compulsory
- Renaissance Tragedy II 15 Credits II Optional
- Eighteenth-Century Bodies II 15 Credits II Optional
- Literature Project II 30 Credits II Optional
- Between the Acts: Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature 1890-1920 II 15 Credits II Optional
- Postmodern Genders II 15 Credits II Optional
- Children's Literature: Growing up in Books II 15 Credits II Optional
- Native American Literature II 15 Credits II Optional
- East End Fictions: Interdisciplinary Studies of London's East End II 15 Credits II Optional
- Worlds Apart 1: Utopian & Dystopian Writing II 15 Credits II Optional
- Texts and Screens: Studies in Literary Adaptation II 15 Credits II Optional
- The Golden Age: Victorian Children's Literature II 15 Credits II Optional
- African-American Literature II 15 Credits II Optional
- Generation Dead: Young Adult Fiction and the Gothic II 15 Credits II Optional
- Twenty-first Century American Writing II 15 Credits II Optional
- Euro-Crime on Page and Screen II 15 Credits II Optional
- Creative Writing Project Poetry II 30 Credits II Optional
- Creative Writing Project Prose II 30 Credits II Optional
Study abroad
An opportunity for an amazing experience, which will help make you stand out from the crowd. With more and more companies working internationally, the experience of living in another country can make a great impression on future employers.
This course offers you the opportunity to enhance your study and CV with a sandwich year abroad. The University has partnerships with over 150 universities around the world, including the USA, Canada, Asia, Africa, Australia, South America, and closer to home in Europe.
If you study abroad between your second and third year of study, you’ll pay no tuition fee to the partner university and no tuition fee to us either. We’ll ask you to make your decision in your second year, so there is plenty of time to think about it.
Work placement
Graduate with invaluable work experience alongside your degree and stand out from the crowd.
This course offers you the opportunity to enhance your study and CV with a work placement sandwich year. It’s a chance to explore career possibilities, make valuable contacts and gain sought-after professional skills.
Our dedicated Careers and Employment team are here to help guide you through the process.
If you take up a work placement between your second and third year of study, at the University of Hertfordshire you’ll pay no tuition fee for this year. We’ll ask you to make your decision in your second year, so there is plenty of time to think about it.
