Creative Writing MA

You will learn in workshops, one-to-one, or in small groups, with support from practicing and published writers, and fellow students. Our award-winning former creative writing students include Booker-shortlisted Oyinkan Braithwaite, and Joe Pierson, who won the Bridport Prize, Stefan Mohammed, awarded the Dylan Thomas Prize, Bafta-winner, Sarah Woolner, the acclaimed poet Dom Bury and celebrated novelist Faiqa Mansab.

With a full program of workshops and critical study, this Creative Writing MA offers you the chance to work on your writing in different genres with the support of published practitioners.

The Writers' Workshop module will encourage you to develop your writing 'voice' through engagement with fellow students across a range of genres (in fiction or creative non-fiction), while the Special Study module enables you to specialize in one genre, such as fiction, non-fiction, poetry or drama.

Our external examiner has rated it highly:

• The Kingston MA is very lively, energized, and relevant in its outlook.'

• 'You a

  re more experimental, adventurous, and original than other creative writing MAs in the UK.

Reasons to choose Kingston

• The Creative Writing MA helps you to develop the craft of creative writing, either on a general level or through specializing in your chosen genre.
• You will become part of Kingston's thriving community, with events such as readings, lectures from published authors, editors, and agents, masterclasses, and enriching discussions.
• The creative dissertation and critical essay give you the chance to further specialise. You also explore writing in a range of forms and styles and take a module exploring critical theory and experimental/avant-garde writing.

• A 2:2 or above honours degree, or equivalent, in creative writing, English literature, literature and language, drama or theatre studies or a similar subject

  .

• IELTS of 6.5 overall with 7.0 in Writing and 5.5 in all other elements.

Some of our departmental graduates have achieved notable successes, having published short stories and novels which were started as part of their degree and attracted good literary agents, for example:

• Oyinkan Braithwaite's novel,

   

  My Sister the Serial Killer, reviewed by The New Yorker and BBC Radio 4's Open Book and Front Row, has won the Crime and Thriller book of the year at the British Book Awards; Oyinkan is the first black woman to do so.
• Grainne Murphy has recently signed a two-book deal with Legend Press. Her debut novel,

   

  Where the Edge Is, was published in September 2020, with The Ghostlights to be published in 2021.
• Ben Halls' debut

   

  The Quarry

   

  was book of the day in The Guardian in March 2020.
• Amy Clarke has signed a two-book deal.

   

  Like Clockwork

   

  is a psychological suspense novel about a true crime podcast host who is obsessively trying to solve the decades-old cold case of a notorious Minnesotan serial killer whose victims were each one year younger than the last. It is due to be published in March/April 2021 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, with a second book to follow.
• A story Seraphina Madsen wrote for the MA Critical Challenges module was published in the UK's pre-eminent literary journal, The White Review, and secured her an agent and a book deal.