MA Creative Writing*

MA Creative Writing prepares students for employment with a range of transferable skills, including ideas generation, critical thinking, project management, copywriting and editing, public speaking, proposal-writing and project reports, community-based project facilitation, publishing, strategic use of social media platforms and emergent technology.

The World Economic Forum identified ‘core skills in 2030’, including: creative thinking; leadership and social influence; systems thinking; analytical thinking; resilience, flexibility, and agility; curiosity and lifelong learning; motivation and self-awareness, and technological literacy – all of which the MA develops, ensuring it is a forward-facing course with a robust, relevant curriculum.

The on-campus MA Creative Writing course, while distinct, will run in tandem with the online MA – efficiently capitalising upon the existing high-quality content developed while clearly appealing to students who wish for a more in-person experience.

The MA Creative Writing course at AUB foregrounds ethical and environmental issues – two significant concerns for students, and reasons articulated why current students have signed up for the sister online MA.

However, differentiating itself from the online course, the on-campus MA Creative Writing makes the most of being part of a lively campus practice-based research culture – with opportunities for students to make the most of open lectures, guest talks, symposia, exhibitions, and interdisciplinary and site-specific collaboration (e.g., screenwriting with film-based courses; residencies at the Talbot Village Trust, etc.), as well as joint ‘live briefs’ with photography, illustration, and graphic design courses.

By aligning with the online provision, the on-campus MA will be able to share resources, including the pre-recorded ‘fireside chats’ with guest speakers (an impressive array of bestselling, prize-winning authors and publishers); the Industry Patron (Michelle Zeitlin: the Hollywood Insider); research symposia; the annual Writing the Earth programme of events for Earth Day (which you'll be able to contribute to); and a Summer Residential Weekend (pioneered this summer at Kingcombe – the Dorset Wildlife Trust’s HQ and residential centre in West Dorset).

Students from both courses will also benefit from any extracurricular events offered, such as book launches, readings, and open mics. Similarly, there's potential for collaboration with the BA (Hons) Creative Writing course. Furthermore, there'll be opportunities for you to participate in publications such as the British Fantasy Society Journal; Panorama: the journal of travel, place and nature; and Goldenark publications, including a course anthology.

The course is divided into three phases: Paradigms, Praxis, and Production.

• Paradigms provides critical context for investigating and interrogating the Creative Writing discipline at postgraduate level.
• Praxis delves into the development of the craft through applied arts research, as well as positionality, culminating in an artistic, ethical vision and public-facing project.
• Production focuses on the creation of industry-ready proposals, projects, and media profile.

Explore each phase in more detail below.

The introductory unit, The Writer as Researcher, is designed to orientate you to postgraduate study – inculcating high-quality research ethics and methodologies, while encouraging you to reframe your practice in a critical context appropriate for this level of study. This will culminate in a student-led Research Symposium where you'll present a research paper to your peers on your passion. This will instill both good practice and essential transferable skills from the outset and help focalise study for the rest of the course.

Moving beyond the microcosm of postgraduate research, The Writer in the World will take a wider view, interrogating every aspect of the writer in a wider cultural context: ethics, intersectionality, positionality, activism, navigating current discourse, social media, blogs, interviews, features, etc. You'll be asked to develop a public-facing platform, engagement, or intervention (e.g. a digital manifesto, website, blog, forum, showcase, reading, residency, commission, etc.), which articulates their emergent identity as a situated writer.

Alongside this, you'll start to develop your Professional Portfolio. This will encourage the development of a professional portfolio of work including blogs, websites, submitted proposals, publishing credits, literary prizes, commissions, residencies, workshops, readings, performances, media appearances, conferences, author talks, collaborations, reviews (written or received) and book contracts. This will be accompanied by a reflective commentary on your development as a creative-critical practitioner, and sustained throughout the whole course – ensuring upon graduating that you'll have an industry-ready portfolio and media profile.

In this phase, you'll apply the ontologies, epistemologies, and methodologies developed in the first unit in deep dives into form and genre, providing an opportunity to begin to formulate the focus of the Major Project. During the Im/Possible Worlds unit, you'll look at the imaginative genres of science fiction, fantasy, weird, speculative, solarpunk, etc., (contained under the umbrella term of ‘Fantastika’) and how they can challenge hegemonies and shibboleths, provide a space for imagineering, plurality, neuro-plasticity, and inclusive representation – encourage future-thinking, problem-solving, and paradigm-shifting. How far you go along the mimesis/anti-mimesis spectrum is up to you: you could write what appears to be mimetic realism, with only the subtlest hint of the uncanny, supernatural, or speculative; or you could write secondary world fantasy, science fantasy, or hard science fiction – or anything in between.

In Writing in the Anthropocene, you'll explore creative writing that foregrounds environmental issues. You'll be introduced to new nature writing and place writing, which will be enriched by optional field trips in the Dorset area. There'll be an option to gain valuable experience, co-running the Writing the Earth symposium (an annual celebration of creativity which explores environmental issues in the lead up to Earth Day), where you'll have the chance to present, organise, steward, etc., thus providing useful real-world experience through collaboration and connection.

You'll work towards a piece of creative writing that explores environmental issues and engages with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, with an option to submit to competitions such as green stories. Alongside this, enrichment lectures will be offered in support of the named awards, e.g. ‘Reimagining Publishing’; and ‘Writing for Performance’; ‘Defining Genre’.

An optional MA Summer Residential Weekend will be offered at Kingcombe, a well-equipped educational centre and nature reserve in West Dorset (run by the Dorset Wildlife Trust), in collaboration with other MAs, offering interdisciplinary opportunities and cross-fertilisation in an inspiring setting.

The penultimate collaborative unit, Publishing in the 21^st Century will look at current trends, emergent forms, and opportunities – examining what makes a 21^st Century publication different from what has come before, encouraging innovation, as you develop a publishing project. The anthology, which will involve collaboration in the conceptualisation, commissioning, editing, design, and launch.

Alongside this, you'll develop a professional proposal for what will be not only your major project, but also a real-world submission for the industry. You'll research not only available markets, but also emergent publishing trends, which will help you identify and focalise your final project, developed through formative feedback in the discussion fora, tutorials, and unit-specific supervision. Also, enrichment lectures will be offered in support of possible named awards: in ‘Publishing Skills’; ‘Advanced Screenwriting’; and ‘Writing YA Fantasy’; as well as a chance to contribute presentations to the annual symposium exploring creativity and environmental issues: Writing the Earth (for Earth Day in April).