(Full time / Part time) 2023 start
Creative Writing and Critical Life MA
Coronavirus information for applicants and offer holders
We hope that by the time you’re ready to start your studies with us the situation with COVID-19 will have eased. However, please be aware, we will continue to review our courses and other elements of the student experience in response to COVID-19 and we may need to adapt our provision to ensure students remain safe. For the most up-to-date information on COVID-19, regularly visit our website, which we will continue to update as the situation changes www.leeds.ac.uk/covid19faqs
Overview
This course combines creative writing with critical writing. You'll develop your creative writing in the context of advancing your critical skills and knowledge of English Studies. You'll engage with a wide variety of literary genres, including poetry, fiction and life writing, as both a critical reader and a creative practitioner, with expert guidance from published creative writers and academic researchers.
This Masters degree enables you to reflect critically on and develop creative writing in the context of a School of English with a long and distinguished history in creative writing. Supported by teaching staff who are actively engaged in both critical and creative writing, you'll develop a theoretically informed understanding of the relation between different forms of critical and creative writing.
Throughout the course, you'll have opportunities to explore areas of personal interest and participate in workshops to hone your skills in diverse forms of writing.
You'll also produce an independent research project, through which you can specialise in creative or critical writing, or combine both, according to your interests.
Specialist resources
The University of Leeds Library is one of the UK's major academic research libraries. It has extensive holdings to support your studies, including English Literature Collections that have been designated of national and international importance.
Our Special Collections offer a huge range of rare books, manuscripts and art, as well as the archives of poets like Tony Harrison, Geoffrey Hill and Simon Armitage, and literary publications such as Stand and The London Magazine.
Take a 360 tour around our libraries:
Brotherton Library
Laidlaw Library
Edward Boyle Library
Other highlights include materials relating to novelists like Arthur Ransome, Angela Thirkell, Melvyn Bragg and Sophie Hannah, and critics like George Wilson-Knight and Bonamy Dobrée. The library also holds original manuscripts by the Brontë family.
The School of English has a long and prestigious history in creative writing. Former staff in the School include Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Geoffrey Hill, J. R. R. Tolkien, and recent Douglas Caster Poetry Fellows Helen Mort, Vahni Capildeo and Malika Booker.
Among our current staff is the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage. Other staff in the creative writing team include Kimberly Campanello, Matt Howard, Sarah Perry, Ross Raisin, Caitlin Stobie and Jay Prosser. Our practices and passions run across creative and critical writing. They include: visual and experimental poetry; eco and medical poetry; the contemporary novel and contemporary lyric; disability studies; autofiction; and transgender memoir.
We are home to University of Leeds Poetry Centre, which brings together the University’s strength and heritage in creative writing. It hosts regular poetry readings by visiting international poets and supports a poetry reading group.
Course content
The MA in Creative Writing and Critical Life forms a bridge between registers typically kept apart. You'll develop skills in creative writing and critical thinking. The course explores the history, generic conventions and experimental possibilities of both creative literary forms and schools of critical thought.
In addition, the course considers the intersection between critical and creative writing, drawing out the critical aspects of creative writing and the creative dimensions of critical writing, in a way that allows us to examine both historical and emergent popular writing forms. The course addresses the concept of critical life: that is how one responds critically to life; and how life is in a critical condition under various forms of threat.
You'll study a range of literary forms, including creative nonfiction, prose fiction, and poetry. Theories and schools of criticism will be covered, such as gender studies and queer theory, postcolonialism and race theory, psychoanalysis and poststructuralist theory.
Through core modules you will learn key practices and concepts in creative and critical writing which you will then expand on through optional modules which allow you to tailor your studies to suit your interests and career ambitions. You will also be able to apply these learnings to your research project.
Through your research project you will have the opportunity to gain experience of creative practice as research. You will write a critical/creative research project/dissertation on a subject of your choice with support from a specialist supervisor and the research resources of the University's Brotherton Library.
Course structure
The list shown below represents typical modules/components studied and may change from time to time. Read more in our Terms and conditions.
Modules
Year 1
Compulsory modules
- Research Project 60 credits
- Writing Identities: Criticism, Creativity, Practice 30 credits
Optional modules (selection of typical options shown below)
- The Long Poem: Self, Land, Witness 30 credits
- Caribbean and Black British Writing 30 credits
- Romantic Identities: Literary Constructions of the Self, 1789-1821 30 credits
- Africas of the Mind 30 credits
- Reading (with) Psychoanalysis 30 credits
- Writing, Archives, Race 30 credits
- Postcolonialism, Animals and the Environment 30 credits
- The Brontes 30 credits
- Fictions of Citizenship in Contemporary American Literature 30 credits
- Shakespeare's Tyrants 30 credits
- Global Indigeneity 30 credits
- Feeling Time 30 credits
- The Magic of Mimesis 30 credits
- Romantic Ecologies 30 credits
- Victorian New Media 30 credits
- War, Mourning, Memory: 1914-1939 30 credits
- Culture and Anarchy: 1945-1968 30 credits
- Turks, Moors, and Jews: Race and Identity in English Renaissance Drama 30 credits
Discovery modules
- Narrative Perspectives in Practice 30 credits
- Digital and Intermedial Storytelling 30 credits
Learning and teaching
You’ll have weekly seminars or workshops in each module where you discuss the themes and issues arising from your reading, and writing. You’ll have the opportunity to share your writing and receive feedback on work-in-progress. You’ll be able to enhance your learning by attending the wide range of seminars and talks by visiting speakers and creative writers that we arrange throughout the year.
However, independent study is a vital part of the degree, as it allows you to build your skills and explore your own ideas as an academic researcher and a creative writer.
On this course you’ll be taught by our expert academics, from lecturers through to professors. You may also be taught by industry professionals with years of experience, as well as trained postgraduate researchers, connecting you to some of the brightest minds on campus.
Assessment
Assessment for this programme includes both creative and critical writing. Modules are assessed either by a combination of these equivalent to 4,000 words, or by a single essay of around 4,000 words. While formal assessment tends to take place at the end of the module, during term you may also be expected to submit work in progress in order to gain feedback, or give presentations in your seminars.
Applying, fees and funding
Entry requirements
A bachelor degree with a 2:1 (hons) in English literature, or a degree scheme that includes a significant proportion of English Literature content, or a related subject.
Applications from those with degrees in other subjects may be considered on an individual basis, along with a sample of recently written work.
We accept a range of international equivalent qualifications. Contact the Postgraduate Admissions Office for more information.
English language requirements
IELTS 6.5 overall, with no less than 6.0 in each component. For other English qualifications, read English language equivalent qualifications.
Improve your English
International students who do not meet the English language requirements for this programme may be able to study our postgraduate pre-sessional English course, to help improve your English language level.
This pre-sessional course is designed with a progression route to your degree programme and you’ll learn academic English in the context of your subject area. To find out more, read Language for Arts and Humanities (6 weeks) and Language for Social Science and Arts: Arts and Humanities (10 weeks).
We also offer online pre-sessionals alongside our on-campus pre-sessionals. You could study a part-time online course starting in January, or a full-time course in summer. Find out more about online pre-sessionals.
You can also study pre-sessionals for longer periods – read about our postgraduate pre-sessional English courses.
How to apply
Deadlines
We don’t have a final deadline for MA Applications, and we’ll consider your application right up until the start date of the programme. However, we encourage you to apply before the end of July if possible, to make arrangements such as securing funding, accommodation or visas. Module enrolment will take place online in early September, so if you apply after that point you may have a more limited choice of modules.
You’ll also need to apply for a place before applying for any scholarships, so check the deadlines for available scholarships on our website.
This link takes you to information on applying for taught programmes and to the University's online application system.
If you're unsure about the application process, contact the admissions team for help.
Documents and information you need
You’ll need to upload the following documents when completing the online application form:
A transcript of your completed BA degree or grades to date
A personal statement of around 500 words in response to the questions asked in the supporting statement section of the application form
If English is not your first language, you’ll need to submit proof of your English language results (eg IELTS).
We do not generally request references, unless further information is required to support the assessment of your application.
Where further information to support the assessment of your application is needed, we may ask for a recent sample of written work.
Next steps
We will decide whether to offer you a place based on your application form, personal statement, transcripts, predicted or actual degree results and, where appropriate, any additional documentation requested.
The Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures receives very large numbers of high-quality applications and regrets that it cannot make offers to all of its applicants. Some particularly popular schools may have to reject many that hold the necessary academic qualifications.
Read about visas, immigration and other information in International students. We recommend that international students apply as early as possible to ensure that they have time to apply for their visa.
Admissions policy
University of Leeds Taught Admissions Policy 2023
Fees
- UK: £11,250 (total)
- International: £22,750 (total)
For fees information for international taught postgraduate students, read Masters fees.
Read more about paying fees and charges.
Part-time fees
Fees for part-time courses are normally calculated based on the number of credits you study in a year compared to the equivalent full-time course. For example, if you study half the course credits in a year, you will pay half the full-time course fees for that year.
Additional cost information
There may be additional costs related to your course or programme of study, or related to being a student at the University of Leeds. Read more about additional costs.
Scholarships and financial support
If you have the talent and drive, we want you to be able to study with us, whatever your financial circumstances. There may be help for students in the form of loans and non-repayable grants from the University and from the government. Find out more at Masters funding overview.
The School of English also offers a range of scholarships for taught postgraduate study. Find out more on our Scholarships page.
Career opportunities
This course will equip you with advanced transferable skills which are valuable in a wide range of careers.
You’ll be a confident researcher who can work independently as well as within a team. You’ll be a strong communicator, both verbally and in writing, and be able to think critically and analytically. In addition, you’ll have a strong level of cultural and critical awareness, and you’ll be able to look at a situation from different points of view.
All of these qualities are attractive to employers across sectors, and you’ll be well equipped to pursue a career in a wide range of fields depending on your interests. These could include teaching, journalism, publishing, advertising, broadcasting and law. Many of our graduates also progress to PhD-level study and you’ll be in a good position to develop a career in academia. Students from our programmes have gone on to have successful careers as literary agents, journalists and researchers, as well as to become published novelists and award-winning poets.
Careers support
Leeds for Life is our unique approach to helping you make the most of University by supporting your academic and personal development. Find out more at the Leeds for Life website.
We encourage you to prepare for your career from day one. That’s one of the reasons Leeds graduates are so sought after by employers.
The Careers Centre and staff in your faculty provide a range of help and advice to help you plan your career and make well-informed decisions along the way, even after you graduate. Find out more at the Careers website.