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• MA in Creative Writing

The Open University’s two-year MA in Creative Writing has been designed by a team of practising writers

The MA is taught online, meaning that wherever you are you will have access to teaching materials, workshops and forums.

One of the most exciting aspects of the MA is its flexibility, offering four distinct strands – fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction and scriptwriting. 

The structure of the course places an emphasis on the cross-fertilisation of genres, enabling students to work intensively within their chosen medium while experimenting in one other.  The MA is therefore perfect not only for writers who already know what genre they want to pursue and develop, but also for those looking to discover their true specialism.

Students will be placed in supportive tutor-groups of fellow writers, and surrounded with the framework and expertise needed to develop their writing in ambitious and rewarding ways. This will involve extensive peer review discussion of fellow students’ work.

Our MA in Creative Writing is the ideal next step for writers with experience of Creative Writing at undergraduate level, or for those with a first degree in a relevant subject and appropriate prior writing experience.

See our prospectus for more information on the MA programme . This includes full details about MA Creative Writing part 1 (A802) and MA Creative Writing part 2 (A803) .

Sample writing exercises

To give you some idea of the level at which you will be working for this MA, we produce four examples of writing exercises taken from each of the four genres covered: fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and script. You can download these exercises in PDF.

You might like to try some of these activities now. All are taken from the opening chapters of each genre, and are designed to introduce some of the definitive elements in each case. Note that you will sometimes, though not always, be asked to share this work with other students, and to give and receive feedback on written work with your peers.

The online work will be moderated by an Associate Lecturer who will also give some group feedback from time to time, but will not comment on every piece of work. There will be detailed and specific comments from tutors on all your assessed work, the TMAs and final EMA (End-of-module assessment).

Remember that you won’t be working in all genres. Initially you will choose your primary genre, and in Block 2 of the first part of the MA (A802) you will choose a secondary genre. There are no constraints within this – you can choose any two genres during A802.

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MA in Creative Writing

Open university, different course options.

• Key information

Course Summary

Tuition fees, entry requirements, similar courses at different universities.

Distance without attendance

Key information DATA SOURCE : IDP Connect

Qualification type.

MA - Master of Arts

Subject areas

Creative Writing English Language

Course type

This qualification is an opportunity to develop your skills as a writer in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and scriptwriting for film, radio and the stage. You'll be able to write in a genre of your choice and experiment with at least one other through practical and inspiring activities. You’ll work towards producing a substantial piece of your own creative writing to a professional standard. You'll also hone your practice through sharing, reading and critiquing the writing of your peers in online forums. You’ll work towards producing a substantial piece of your own creative writing to a professional standard.

UK fees Course fees for UK students

Fee: £7,635. The total cost of your qualification depends on the modules you choose to study. With us, you pay for your modules as you study them rather than the whole qualification up front.

International fees Course fees for EU and international students

Fee: £11,910. The total cost you pay for your qualification is dependent on the modules you choose to study. With us, you pay for your modules as you study them, rather than the whole qualification up front.

You must hold a UK honours degree (or equivalent), preferably with at least a 2:1 classification. Although your degree does not need to be in Creative Writing or a closely related subject, you will need some knowledge of the subject to successfully complete this qualification, as the MA in Creative Writing assumes all candidates have the knowledge and skills usually acquired by pursuing the subject at undergraduate level.

MA Creative Writing Prose Fiction

University of east anglia uea, ma creative writing poetry, ma creative writing scriptwriting, phd postgraduate research in creative writing, ma creative writing (non-fiction).

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Student and tutor module reviews

Ma creative writing part 1.

see module description

• Level: Postgraduate
• student reviews

Student reviews

I have enjoyed OU study until this module, which I found to be a lonely one with no tutor feedback on the writing submitted to the weekly activities. Each week you offer up your own work for critique (often bland or non-existant) by other students and your critique of their work, but never find out what a professional/tutor's opinion is on anything posted, so never feel any the wiser, or know if what you thought / have written as critique is on the right lines. Other MAs offer such tutor involvement and directed collective discussions as a matter of course, and I expected it here. Tutors just comment on your 3 graded assignments. My tutor's feedback was excellent, but not everyone was happy with their tutor, who is your one and only contact with the OU creative writing teaching staff. Overall, I was very disappointed with this course and felt demotivated. I do not think it is worth the money. I still want to continue with my MA in creative writing, but wish I had chosen to do it elsewhere.

Course starting: October 2018

Review posted: September 2019

Faculty response

It’s true to say that there are no collective tutorials on this wholly online module, with feedback mainly distributed through forum interaction and via detailed feedback on assessment. However, we do provide a wide range of tutor-moderated forums, in addition to the tutor group, where students can interact with peers and contributions are moderated by tutors with a specialism in one of the four taught genres on the course. On both modules in this masters degree, we periodically enrich this level of interaction by offering week-long forums hosted by visiting publishing industry professionals and central OU module team members.

Please note

Each of the views expressed above is an individual's very particular response, largely unedited, and should be viewed with that in mind. Since modules are subject to regular updating, some of the issues identified may have already been addressed. In some instances the faculty may have provided a response to a comment. If you have a query about a particular module, please contact your Regional Centre.

To send us reviews on modules you have studied with us, please click the sign in button below.

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MA in Creative Writing

Want to know what it's like to study this course at uni? We've got all the key info, from entry requirements to the modules on offer. If that all sounds good, why not check out reviews from real students or even book onto an upcoming open days ?

Different course options

MA - Master of Arts

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Course info

Entry requirements, tuition fees, latest reviews.

This qualification is an opportunity to develop your skills as a writer in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and scriptwriting for film, radio and the stage. You'll be able to write in a genre of your choice and experiment with at least one other through practical and inspiring activities. You’ll work towards producing a substantial piece of your own creative writing to a professional standard. You'll also hone your practice through sharing, reading and critiquing the writing of your peers in online forums. You’ll work towards producing a substantial piece of your own creative writing to a professional standard.

What students say

A great option for remote study, and cheaper than a physical uni! Sometimes it takes a while for a tutor to get back to you, and there’s not many seminars a year - it’s all self.. Read more

Module Options

You must hold a UK honours degree (or equivalent), preferably with at least a 2:1 classification. Although your degree does not need to be in Creative Writing or a closely related subject, you will need some knowledge of the subject to successfully complete this qualification, as the MA in Creative Writing assumes all candidates have the knowledge and skills usually acquired by pursuing the subject at undergraduate level.

Students living in

Students from Domestic

Fee: £7,635. The total cost of your qualification depends on the modules you choose to study. With us, you pay for your modules as you study them rather than the whole qualification up front.

Students from EU

Fee: £11,910. The total cost you pay for your qualification is dependent on the modules you choose to study. With us, you pay for your modules as you study them, rather than the whole qualification up front.

Students from International

Latest Creative Writing reviews

Review breakdown, how all students rated:.

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English Literature and Creative Writing - Advice?

So this degree has absolutely nothing to do with my day job or current career, I'm not thinking of doing it to get a new job or anything like that- the study is purely for me. Due to factors outside of my control, I never really got to finish my education and I've tried doing a degree at Birkbeck but it's simply too intense to do alongside my day job.

I've always loved reading and writing, I would love to write a book one day, it's a passion of mine I've always enjoyed but never really explored fully.

Has anyone here done, or is currently doing, this program with the open university? How did you/are you finding it?

Would you recommend it?

Many thanks in advance,

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Conjuring ghosts

UND’s Patrick Henry, coordinator of Creative Writing, teaches students to write with craft, humility — and imagination

A UND assistant professor of English is finding himself in a position any writer would love to be in: he’s had one book recently published, and another is set to hit book stores soon.

And his process of achieving that publication success, which in part stems from working with his students, also provides him with valuable insights to pass on to them.

Patrick Thomas Henry, director of the UND Writers Conference and coordinator of Creative Writing , said his scholarly book The Work of the Living: Modernism, the Artist-Critic, and the Public Craft of Criticism was published in April by Clemson University Press. On the creative side, his collection of short stories, Practice for Becoming a Ghost , will be published this month by Susquehanna University Press.

Henry said he’s excited to see his book of short stories coming together, after having previously published individual stories in literary journals and magazines. It’s a publishing process that writers frequently engage in, he said, as they build their own portfolios. Collecting those stories in book-form marks the next step in a writer’s career.

“Having a short story collection come together from that work is just remarkably fulfilling for me,” Henry said.

But what does it mean, to practice for becoming a ghost? The book derives its name from one of its stories: a fantasy ghost story, in which a woman tells her boyfriend to imagine that he is the only one who can see her. She is actively practicing, willing herself to become a ghost.

The online description of Henry’s debut collection informs that he “treads the line between the real and the fantastic, conjuring the ghosts that haunt both our past and our present.”

He agrees with that description: “That title for the whole book really communicates the ways in which we are always living with things that we’ve lost, with grief, with memories, and learning how to navigate, to think through those very human and deep emotional experiences,” he said.

Henry’s academic work, the title of which takes a left turn from that of the story collection, posits the idea of viewing the criticism produced by writers such as Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot as works of literature in their own right. Viewed in that light, the book examines how these works engage with different audiences — including, but not limited to, scholars — and become “public humanities work.”

Practicing and rehearsing in class

Doing theater and playing in the marching band in high school has informed how Henry teaches. He likens his work with students to practicing and rehearsing the story that is to come. After all, that’s what musicians do when they focus only on a few measures at a time, getting those beats down and understanding how the segment should work. The same goes for actors, who rehearse scene by scene.

By using the notions of practicing and rehearsing, Henry helps students understand that they can’t simply sit down and knock out a completed story in one writing session. There is a humility, a humbleness, to the process of writing that he tries to pass on to his students, he said. That means conveying the idea that perfection likely can’t happen on demand.

To do that, Henry shows students his own humility and humbleness – by letting them look at a folio of his own work. That folio includes false starts on stories, drafts that have had to be rewritten and reimagined, and importantly, stories that have taken a long time to complete.

“That’s what I try to do in my creative writing workshops,” he said. “In the fiction workshop that I’ll be teaching this fall, I’ve started to settle into a pattern that I think works really well for that class, and it’s actually designed entirely to get students to think of a practice or rehearsal, leading to a more developed story type of process.”

Throughout Henry’s efforts to let students know that it’s OK to not be perfect on the first try (he sometimes hopes they stick with a story for the whole semester), those same students are energizing his own creative work.

That’s because working as a teacher at UND — working with students on understanding writing, storytelling and the importance of narrative — has fueled his ability to shape and craft his stories.

“I don’t think I would have been able to do my creative work without our students here at UND and the work that we do in the classroom,” he said.

More from Author

Adam Kurtz is a 2000 graduate of the University of North Dakota. In 2002 he moved to Japan to teach English. There he met his wife and started a family, and returned to North Dakota with them in 2019. He worked as a reporter at the Grand Forks Herald before joining the Division of Marketing & Communications at UND in mid-2022 as the Strategic Communications Writer.

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