Whether you want to refine an existing piece of work or experiment with new forms of writing, you’ll receive advice and support from a team of published writers, who include our Royal Literary Fund Fellows.
You’ll use what you’ve learned to create samples of writing to share with lecturers and your fellow students. This will allow you to receive a wide range of responses to your work as well as learn to critically evaluate the work of others.
As a postgraduate Creative Writing student at ARU you’ll have access to talks, masterclasses, and networking opportunities with agents, publishers and established writers. These include many events organised by our Centre for Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Taught in Cambridge and offered full- or part-time, this Masters degree is a great way to study a subject you love and perhaps transform your career.
Aims
Our MA Creative Writing will help you prepare for a career as a creative writer or in related areas such as publishing and the media, but will also give you critical and analytical skills valued by many employers.
Many of our past students (.pdf) have gone on to have successful careers as writers, including Costa Short Story Award 2019 winner Caroline Ward Vine, Kaddy Benyon, Penny Hancock, and Kate Swindlehurst.
You might also decide to continue on to a research degree, such as our PhD Creative Writing.
Modules & assessment
Core modules
- Patterns of Story: Fiction and its Forms
- Master's Project in Creative Writing
Optional modules (subject to availability)
- Workshop: the Short Story
- Shakespeare and Society
- Twentieth and Twenty First Century Fiction and Social Change
- Creativity and Content in Publishing
- Workshop: the Novel
- Special Topic in Creative Writing/English Literature
- The Business of Publishing
- Revolution and Reform in the Long Nineteenth Century
Assessment
Modules are subject to change and availability.
You will show your progress on the course through a mix of essays, your own writing samples, and critical reflections on your work.
The major project at the end of the course will allow you to submit up to 15,000 words of your own writing project, including a critical commentary.
