MA in Creative Writing

The MA is the highest qualification currently offered by UCP, but students could go onto doctorate or MPhil programmes at other institutions.

Launch Your 21st-Century Writing Career

Are you ready to transform your writing craft into a sustainable career? Our MA Creative Writing programme is designed to equip you with the academic, creative, and professional writing skills needed for success in the 21st Century.

This postgraduate degree has been developed to meet the needs of both local and national students looking to explore their craft alongside the entrepreneurial skills vital for a modern writing career.

What You Will Study

The MA course combines writing workshops with modules that delve into the practical and theoretical aspects of professional authorship.

Key Focus Areas:

• Creative Craft: Hone your writing craft through focused workshops. In the second semester, you will specialise in either poetry or prose fiction / creative non-fiction.
• The Nature of the Book: Explore the book both historically and in contemporary contexts.
• Performance and Technology: Consider ways in which emerging technologies and performance can be used for textual production, ethical considerations, and how they offer opportunities to build paratexts and performances that go ‘beyond the book’.
• Professional Skills: The programme is specifically designed to offer a professional experience, developing entrepreneurial skills in a range of content creation contexts necessary for 21st-century employment. You will learn from modules delivered by professional writers and academics. Additionally, there will be opportunities throughout the MA to meet industry professionals and gain crucial professional practice and engagement.

Professional Connections and Support

The programme is deeply linked to the cultural sector, providing outstanding opportunities for networking and career development:

• Industry Links: We encourage and support work experience via UCP Futures, our dedicated employability service. Students will have opportunities to work with organisations linked to the Malcolm Bradbury Trust, John Clare Cottage, Little Gidding TS Eliot festival, and Metal, among others.
• Malcolm Bradbury Trust Support: We work directly with the board of the Malcolm Bradbury Trust, which consists of industry experts across the creative arts. This relationship provides special seminar sessions held with relevant board members. The Malcolm Bradbury Trust will generously offer one student bursary of £2,500 per intake.
• Meet Leading Authors: We continually build on previous visits from nationally and internationally renowned writers, including Michael Rosen, Sophie Hannah, George Szirtes, Preti Taneja, Toby Litt, and Andrew McMillan. We also host international events, such as ‘An Evening With Akvile Kavaliauskaite and Laimonas Briedis’, two Lithuanian authors who were in residency with the National Centre for Writing.

Why Study in Peterborough?

UCP is situated in the heart of Peterborough, offering you a unique environment rich in literary heritage and a rapidly developing contemporary arts scene.

• Literary History: The city is only five miles from Clare Cottage, the historic home of the poet John Clare. Peterborough proudly claims authors like Clare, L.P. Hartley, and David Pinner, as well as contemporary writers and performers such as Eva Dolan, Charley Genever, and Ross Sutherland.
• Vibrant Local Scene: Peterborough boasts a vibrant and thriving literary scene, featuring its own poet laureate, internationally recognised literary performers and educators, and bur

Compulsory Modules

The Art of Workshopping: Writing, Reading & Revision

In this module you will develop their skills as an independent writer, critic and thinker, understanding and building your own unique writing practice through readings of exemplary texts, open seminar discussion, writing exercises and creative workshops. You will undertake three weeks of poetry, three weeks of prose fiction and three weeks of Creative Non-fiction. In the remaining three weeks, you will continue to workshop edited pieces of writing from one of the genres. Through this method you will learn to identify and apply central concepts like poetics, imagery, form and structure, theme, and voice, plot, narrative, stylistics, theme, voice and character in both reading and writing practice, experimentation, ingenuity, ambition and originality in your approach to your own writing will be encouraged. Workshops will develop close reading and editorial skills and invite you to learn the lexicon of workshopping so to offer and receive constructive criticism of your own work and that of peers.

Reading the Book: Caxton to Amazon

This module contextualises the creative work which you are producing on the MA by providing an overview of the history of the book as a physical object which both shapes and is shaped by culture. From your perspective as a writer, you will develop an understanding of what it has meant to write and publish a book in the past and how the practice of reading has changed and been perceived over time. You will examine how the cultural conditions which produce the book have influenced form, narrative strategies, and authorial choices across different historical periods, thereby improving your ability to critically analyse not only textual content, but also materiality and reception. With this context in mind, you will critically reflect on what it means to write, publish and read a book in the digital age within the wider Historical contexts of the book.

Beyond the Book: Publication, Practice and Presence in the Digital Age

The 'Beyond the Book' module is designed to be at the forefront of creative writing education. Its core rationale is to explore how writing can transcend traditional formats by leveraging new technologies, specifically Artificial Intelligence (AI), performance, and innovative publishing ventures. The module directly links to the broader MA programme by preparing you for professional careers in the arts and writing-adjacent industries in the 21st century. It aims to equip you with practical experience in utilising emerging digital tools for creative production, and to foster critical appraisal of the ethical, creative, and technical challenges and opportunities presented by technology in the creative writing field, including authorship, ownership, and societal impact. Furthermore, the module fosters a deep understanding of the local literary and cultural context of Peterborough, UK, encouraging its use as inspiration and a practical testing ground for innovative creative projects. It also focuses on developing a professional portfolio of diverse creative works and cultivating key technical and entrepreneurial skills to enhance employability in the arts across a range of evolving creative and digital industries, such as emerging AI platforms, traditional and e-publishing, teaching and research, and performance.

Mastering the Craft: Research, Development & Publication for Writers

This module aims to equip you with the requisite skills to complete your dissertations and realise a publishing project. For example, students who want to write a novella will need to demonstrate an awareness of the form and its creative possibilities. You will deliver a ten minute presentation at the end of the six weeks that shows the progress of the R&D with both peer and an expert panel feedback session.

Postgraduate Major Project

Overview

Since the module allows you to pursue your own creative writing interests under guidance, the curriculum will vary according to those interests and be flexible enough to accommodate your individual development. There will be a traditional Creative Writing dissertation supported by a thirty-minute viva, but also the option to create a dissertation in new media, such as a podcast, film or digital narrative with an equivalence to the traditional word count and viva.

Optional Modules

Advanced Workshopping: Prose Fiction

Overview

In this module you will focus on self- generating material, understanding your own writing process through practice and identifying their strengths and interests (literary and otherwise), with an emphasis on workshopping each week. You will work towards a developed piece of writing, which may be short pieces that are self-contained such a flash fiction or short stories, or a part of a longer project such as a novel or novella. In seminars/workshops, you will give and receive constructive criticism from the tutor and peers, and work on editorial exercises to revise and refine your writing. Seminars will focus on reading selected extracts, process- and craft-focused texts, and reflective essays as a basis for class discussion. Seminar leaders will identify recommended reading tailored to individual students' interests and development.

Advanced Workshopping: Poetry

Overview

In this module you will focus on self- generating material, understanding their own writing process through practice and identifying your strengths and interests (literary and otherwise), with an emphasis on workshopping each week. You will work towards a fully realised and developed piece of writing (105 lines of poetry - equivalent to 3000 words of prose), which may be self-contained or individual poems. In seminars/workshops, you will give and receive constructive criticism from the tutor and peers, and work on editorial exercises to revise and refine their writing. Seminars will focus on reading selected extracts, process- and craft-focused texts, and reflective essays as a basis for class discussion. Seminar leaders will identify recommended reading tailored to individual students' interests and development.