ma creative writing oxford university

Creative writing courses

Short and part-time courses with Oxford University

Need an extra push to finish your novel, poem or play? Want to explore new genres? Whether you're a beginner wondering where to start, or an experienced writer looking to extend your craft, we have a course for you.

Short courses

Part-time undergraduate and postgraduate study

Summer schools in Oxford

Our short courses in creative writing include in person and online live-time weekly classes, day and weekend schools and flexible online courses.

Courses cover all genres: fiction, poetry, memoir, creative nonfiction, drama, writing for young adults and critical reading. There are courses for beginners and options for those with experience. Class sizes are kept small to maximise interaction between you, your classmates and your tutor.

Credit earned from some of our short courses is transferable towards our Certificate of Higher Education – a part-time undergraduate course in which you study a main subject discipline, such as creative writing, but also undertake study in other subjects to broaden your knowledge and skills.

View all short courses in creative writing
Ways to study: how our short courses work

Part-time Oxford University qualifications

From undergraduate level to advanced postgraduate study.

Certificate of Higher Education in Creative Writing

The Certificate of Higher Education is a flexible, part-time programme which lets you study a main subject discipline (such as creative writing) while also undertaking study in other academic subjects. Ideal for lifelong learners, you can study what you want, when you want, how you want. The credits you obtain from taking short online courses, weekly classes and attendance at the Oxford University Summer School for Adults all count towards your final award.

Certificate of Higher Education
Undergraduate Diploma in Creative Writing

The Diploma in Creative Writing is a two-year part-time course that helps you to strengthen your ability in four major areas of literary activity — prose, poetry, drama and analytical reading — while letting you specialise in the genre of your choice. Choose from two study options: regular in-person meetings in Oxford or mostly online with a summer school in Oxford.

MSt in Creative Writing

Delve deeper with our a two-year, part-time master's programme offering a unique combination of high contact hours, genre specialisation, and critical and creative breadth. Delivered in a clustered learning format of five residences, two guided retreats and one placement over two years.

Join us for one of our Oxford creative writing summer courses , and spend a week or longer immersed in your craft. Accredited and non-accredited options are available and courses take place either at Rewley House or at one of the University's historic colleges.

Creative writing summer courses

Upcoming courses

Christmas feasts in the middle ages.

Sat 30 Nov 2024
9:45am – 5:00pm

Film Noir: 1940s Hollywood Cinema

Sat 07 Dec 2024
10:15am – 5:30pm

Advanced Creative Writing (Online)

Wed 08 Jan 2025 – 21 Mar 2025

Trollope, Eliot, Dickens and Hardy: Reading Victorian Fiction (Online)

Writing lives (online), student spotlights.

Discover how our students have developed their creative writing skills thanks to completing a course at the Department.

Sarah Easter Collins

Charles bush, tahmina maula, daisy johnson.

About the MSt

Alumni News
Links & Resources

Oxford University’s Master of Studies in Creative Writing is a two-year, part-time master’s degree course offering a unique combination of high contact hours, genre specialization, and critical and creative breadth. The emphasis on the course is very much on widening students’ sense of what is possible in their own creative output, and on cross-genre exploration in their writerly practice as well as in their critical investigations. In Year One particularly, students are encouraged to experiment as widely as possible beyond the limits of what they have hitherto felt their writing might be aiming to do, while in Year Two they work on material and genre-specialisation of their own choosing.

For more information about the course, please visit www.conted.ox.ac.uk/mstcw .

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