Creative Writing (MLitt)

About the MLitt programmes

Creative

Workshops are led by a writer teacher and are conducted on a strict rota with two/three samples of work considered every week, each student work-shopped three times in a term.  Students and workshop leaders print out and mark with corrections, suggestions, queries and commentary, relating to diction, pace, tone, point of view, structure, form etc.

Tutorials: For the duration of the programme, every student is assigned to one of several experienced writer-tutors with whom regular semestral meetings are scheduled and who helps bring together the workshop and seminar elements in individual tutorials which are formative experiences of great value. The tutor provides a dependable and developing ‘constant’ within the dynamic flow of the programme.

Visiting speakers in the Creative area of the MLitt will invariably be writers, and we will endeavour to represent a variety of modes and approaches. These events are open to the School and College at large and public attendance is encouraged. Not all events will necessarily be ‘staged’ at the University, and the Programme will work with organisers in the city, civic and academic, to develop and diversify the programme.

Assessment is via a portfolio of work developed from your workshop work. Normally this will be no more than 25,000 words of prose, 600 lines of poetry, or the equivalent in other genres or forms (as agreed with your tutor). The portfolio represents a space in which you showcase your best work.  It can take a variety of forms and include a range of contents: poetry, drama, fiction, non-fiction, and experimental work. Some of the latter, e.g. performance or computer generated text, cannot be submitted in conventional portfolio format, and these submissions in particular need to be discussed in detail with the tutor.

Craft and Experimentation

Craft and Experimentation consists of two course units

Semester 1: Reading as a Writer (CX1): weekly lectures and discussions (2 hours total) on elements of craft, reading like a writer, and experimentation in your creative practice: the purpose being to reach a shared creative vocabulary and knowledge (in part, for workshop discussions) and to explore precedents and techniques for creating character, point of view, place, time and structure, and to consider related themes to give depth to your own writing and critical skills. This course may include student-led sessions on the assigned texts and will have an indicative reading list and online handouts.

Assessment is by a portfolio of creative work as per guidelines given at the start of they year.

Semester 2: Experimentation (CX2): weekly seminars (2 hours total) continuing the close reading practice of the first semester and exploring experimentation in form. This course may include student-led sessions on the
assigned texts and will have an indicative reading list and online handouts.

Assessment will be by a portfolio of creative work as per guidelines given at the start of they year.

Editing and Publication

Editing and Publication consists of two course units

Term 1: Copyright, Publishing and the Culture of Reception: weekly discussions and seminars that consider the legal, material, mechanical and wider cultural (media) contexts for creative work and the issues that arise from them. Book reviewing, the literary magazine, the role of the agent, the publishing contract, models of publishing including PoD and the Web, will be considered.

 This course has an indicative reading list, online handouts, and assessment is by a portfolio of the weekly exercises posted on Moodle, revised, edited and submitted in January.

Term 2: Editing the Twenty-First Century: Editorial Project. This is a supervised creative or research project, either individual or collaborative, in which the student selects an activity particularly relevant to his or her creative work and produces a project in relation to it. The projects are bespoke, undertaken with the agreement of the course convenor, and can consist of: editorial work on the Course web-zine, the creation of a new web magazine or a creative site; the creation of a paper magazine or chap-book; an adaptation from one medium to another (e.g. dramatisation for radio or screen); development of Resource Centre, creation and/or maintenance of Moodle resources, outreach activities, etc.

Assessment is via the Editorial Project, either individually or jointly undertaken, submitted in April.