MA Creative Writing
Canterbury, United Kingdom
MA
DURATION
2 years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2026
TUITION FEES
GBP 19,300 *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* for International| UK: GBP 10,000
Key Summary
This challenging, practice-based course will lift you as a writer, offering you a unique approach emphasising innovation and experimentation, and encouraging you to develop your best and most authentic work. You will graduate with the skills required for professional practice in the creative writing industry.
Why study Creative Writing at Kent
- A wide range of expertise: Teaching is delivered by practising, award-winning writers with a wide range of experience. We bring expertise in the industry to our teaching and research.
- Make your voice heard: Be at the forefront of debate in our lively, confident, and engaged research community.
- Join a new generation of critical thinkers: Develop your critique of a culture in crisis and sharpen your critical language.
- A vibrant academic community: Join a lively, diverse community committed to high-quality literary fiction and exciting contemporary poetry.
- Share your work: Join regular open mic nights, or get involved in Canterbury’s lively poetry scene. You can publish your work in the biannual Kent Review.
Scholarship value
The award covers tuition fees, return airfares and living costs for a one-year taught Master's programme.
Deadline
Deadline for Commonwealth application: - 12 December 2024.
Hold an unconditional offer (with the only outstanding condition, international fee deposit) of a programme of study from the University of Kent - 31 January 2025
Criteria
To be eligible to apply for this scholarship, candidates must:
- Hold an undergraduate degree at UK first-class level equivalent.
- Be a citizen of or have been granted refugee status by one of the eligible Commonwealth countries listed or be a British Protected Person.
- Be a permanent resident in one of the eligible Commonwealth countries listed above.
- To be committed to the University of Kent, you can apply for more than one course and/or to more than one University, but you may only accept one offer of a Shared Scholarship.
- Not have studied or worked for one (academic) year or more in a high-income country.
- Be unable to afford to study in the UK without this scholarship.
- Return to their home country as soon as their period of study is complete. In some circumstances, a student may be permitted to remain in the UK if seeing doctoral study and satisfy certain strict conditions.
- Hold an offer by the deadline for a full-time postgraduate taught degree on one of the eligible courses at the University of Kent:
- MSc Artificial Intelligence
- MSc Infectious Diseases
- MSc Cyber Security
- MA International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution
- MSc Applied Actuarial Science
- MSc Conservation Science
- MA English and American Literature
Further details
Commonwealth Shared Scholarships, set up by DFID in 1986, represent a unique partnership between the United Kingdom government and UK Universities.
Funded by the UK Department of International Development (DFID), Commonwealth Shared Scholarships enable talented and motivated individuals to gain the knowledge and skills required for sustainable development. They are aimed at those who could not otherwise afford to study in the UK.
These scholarships are offered under six themes:
- Science and technology for development
- Strengthening health systems and capacity
- Promoting global prosperity
- Strengthening global peace, security and governance
- Strengthening resilience and response to crises - Access, inclusion and opportunity.
How to apply
To be considered for the Commonwealth Shared Scholarship you must:
- Make a formal application for a postgraduate degree at the University of Kent commencing September 2025/26. This can be done online here.
- Complete the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (CSC) online application process. For information on how to do that and full details of the application process please go directly to the Commonwealth Scholarships webpages.
- Applications will be considered based on Academic Excellence and a completed application.
- The Commonwealth will accept applications until 12th December 2024 (closing at 16:00 GMT).
Stage 1
Compulsory modules currently include the following
- The Literary Landscape
- Working as a Writer
- Workshop
- Creative Writing Dissertation
Optional modules may include the following
- Fiction 1
- Fiction 2
- Life Writing
- Translation, Variation, Adaptation
- Poetry
What you’ll learn
You are encouraged to try new approaches and to work across poetry, fiction, non-fiction, TV drama, or even translation. In your course,e you’ll read a wide variety of texts, share ideas in collaborative workshops, deepen your understanding of form and technique, and experiment and develop your ideas and those of your fellow writers. You can specialise from the start.
We take a rigorous and creative approach to enable you to develop your ideas, voice and craft. We understand that the most ambitious work takes time and we support you as you develop your own style. We can help you discover how to make your writing more effective and learn how to assess your work professionally.
Many career paths can benefit from the writing and analytical skills that you develop as a postgraduate student. Students have gone on to work in academia, journalism, broadcasting and media, publishing, writing and teaching; as well as more general areas such as banking, marketing analysis and project management.
Teaching and assessment
You take a total of six modules, for which you will produce approximately 7000 words each (or an equivalent number of poems or translations). In addition, you write a creative dissertation of about 12000 words (or an equivalent number of poems or translations).
Programme aims
For course aims and learning outcomes please see the course specification.
Study support
Specialist resources
The Templeman Library has excellent research resources, as do the Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library. There are a number of special collections: the John Crow Collection of Elizabethan and other early printed texts; the Reading/Raynor Collection of theatre history (over 7,000 texts or manuscripts); ECCO (Eighteenth-Century Collections Online); the Melville manuscripts relating to popular culture in the 19th and early 20th centuries; the Pettingell Collection (over 7,500 items) of 19th-century drama; the Eliot Collection; children’s literature; and popular literature. A gift from Mrs Valerie Eliot has increased the Library’s already extensive holdings in modern poetry. The British Library in London is also within easy reach.
Conferences and seminars
Our research centres organise many international conferences, symposia and workshops.
You are encouraged to organise and participate in a conference which takes place in the summer term. This provides you with the invaluable experience of presenting your work to your peers.
We run several series of seminars, lectures and readings throughout the academic year. Our weekly research seminars are organised collaboratively by staff and graduates in the School. Speakers range from our own postgraduate students, to members of staff, to distinguished lecturers who are at the forefront of contemporary research nationally and internationally.
The Centre for Creative Writing hosts a very popular and successful weekly reading series. Recent guests have included: poets Cole Swensen, Lee Ann Brown, Peter Gizzi, Sarah Crewe and Stephen Collis, fiction writers Avni Doshi, May-Lan Tan, Taymour Soomro, Niven Govinden and Megan Hunter, memoirist Crystal Rasmussen, and journalists Bidisha and Alex Peake-Tomkinson. Find out more on our YouTube channel.
Dynamic publishing culture
Staff publish regularly and widely in journals, newspapers and magazines including Granta, The Guardian, The Literary Review, Lit Hub, New Statesman, Poetry Review, PN Review, and Poetry London. They also edit poetry periodicals including Free Verse, Litmus, and Datableed.