Creative Writing BA
Colchester, United Kingdom
DURATION
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
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TUITION FEES
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STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
Scholarships
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Introduction
Creative Writing BA
Explore the urge to create and build new worlds, to share language and stories with others. On our course you work on the craft of writing through a multi-genre approach, through and across a variety of writings from fiction and poetry, to non-fiction, psychogeography, performance writing and beyond.
At Essex we offer an unusual approach to the practice of writing, combing innovative and traditional methods in order to develop your writing skills and abilities to judge your work critically, while expanding your knowledge across different modes and genres. In the Centre for Creative Writing we encourage a culture of experiment and creativity, enabling you to feel part of a community of writers.
Admissions
Scholarships and Funding
Curriculum
Year 1
- Origins and Transformations in Literature and Drama
- Writing for the Radio
- Text Up Close: Reading for Criticism
- The Writer's Toolkit
- The Humanities Graduate: Future Pathways
- Poetry: A Very Short Introduction
- Contemporary Texts and Contexts
Year 2
- Writing the Short Story
- Writing Structures
- Creative Non-Fiction
- "I, too, sing America": Identity, Diversity, and Voice in United States Literature
- Criticism: Practice and Theory
Final Year
- Shakespeare and the History Play
- The Beginning of a Novel
- "There is a Continent Outside My Window" : United States and Caribbean Literatures in Dialogue
- Independent Creative Writing Project
- Reading and Writing Poetry
Program Outcome
You will enhance your skills by engaging with a range of techniques, practical exercises and creative approaches and opportunities, including:
- Discover how words and ideas move across the world and are transformed through translation
- Write an independent creative project developed over eight months in your final year
- Explore the psychological foundations of creativity in relation to myth
- Surrealism and Defamiliarisation
- Creative use of social media
- Writing for radio and playwriting
Program Tuition Fee
Career Opportunities
Our graduates are also ideally prepared for careers in the media, education, publishing, and the film and theatre industries. Two particular areas in which our graduates have had recent success are publishing and the theatre. One of our former students is now in charge of editorial at a large publishing house, and another has just taken over running one of the country’s major theatres.
Other recent graduates have gone on to work in a wide range of desirable roles including:
- The Civil Service
- Journalism and broadcasting
- Marketing
- Museum and library work
- Commerce and finance
- Teaching
Program delivery
Creative Writing BA: 3 years
Creative Writing BA (Including Year Abroad): 4 years
Creative Writing BA (Including Placement Year): 4 years
- Teaching will mainly take the form of lectures and classes of about 20 students
- Emphasis on practical exercises and creative approaches
- A typical timetable involves a one-hour lecture and a one-hour class for each of your modules every week