Creative Writing MA
Subject and course type
- Language and Media
- Postgraduate
Whether you want to develop your overall craft of creative writing, or specialise in a particular form, this Creative Writing MA will help you achieve your goals.
Our award-winning former creative writing students include Booker-shortlisted Oyinkan Braithwaite, 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.
There is also a distance learning version of this course.
You are reading:
Be inspired by fellow students, classic works, guest lectures and masterclasses
With a full programme of workshops and critical study, this Creative Writing MA offers you the chance to work on your own writing in different genres and forms.
At our Penrhyn Road campus, you will have access to a modern environment with the latest equipment, including the Learning Resources Centre. This offers:
- subject libraries, plus a free inter-library loan scheme to other libraries in the Greater London area;
- online database subscriptions; and
- a growing selection of resource materials.
Kingston is just a 30-minute train journey away from central London, where you can access a wealth of additional libraries and archives, including the British Library.
The Kingston MA is very lively, energised and relevant in its outlook.
You are more experimental, adventurous and original than other creative writing MAs in the UK.
Why choose this course
During this Creative Writing MA, you will learn in workshops, one-to-ones or in small groups, with support from practising and published practitioners and fellow students.
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 will enable you to specialise in one genre, such as fiction, non-fiction, poetry or drama.
You will explore critical theory and experimental/avant-garde writing. And your creative dissertation and critical essay will give you the chance to specialise further.
Throughout this course, you will become part of Kingston's thriving community, with events such as:
- a series of masterclasses with publishing specialists and professionals
- weekly guest lectures from leading journalists. These include
- Samira Ahmed – an award-winning journalist with 20 years' experience in print and broadcast
- David Jenkins – editor of Little White Lies
- Richard Moynihan – Head of Digital Journalism, The Telegraph
- Alex Stedman – Fashion Blogger at The Frugality and former Style Editor at Red magazine
- regular readings through Writers' Centre Kingston, which offers an annual programme of events from talks to workshops and festivals. These are hosted and curated in partnership with local institutions, such as The Rose Theatre, the Rich Mix Cultural Foundation, the Museum of Futures and Kingston First
- regular philosophy lunchtime lectures, which focus on a major figure in the history of Western philosophy. These introduce students to that thinker's work, usually through the discussion of one of her or his emblematic works
You will also have the opportunity to contribute to Kingston University's publication, Ripple, which includes fiction, poetry, reviews and creative non-fiction and is edited by students on the course. This provides:
- a platform for the publication of creative work
- a chance to get hands-on experience of the publishing process
The Art School Experience
As part of Kingston School of Art, students on this course benefit from joining a creative community where we encourage collaborative working and critical practice.
Our workshops and studios are open to all disciplines, enabling students and staff to work together, share ideas and explore multi-disciplinary making.
Course content
You will have the opportunity to develop your creative writing skills in general or specialise in a chosen genre. As well as studying literary criticism and theory, you will also and will look at the professional elements of writing, such as copy-editing and how to get your work published.
Core modules
You'll be expected to pass all four modules and the dissertation to complete the course.
Core modules
60.00 credits
This module focuses on your own creative writing and research into your chosen form or genre, developed in consultation with your supervisor. You learn via one-to-one tutorials with your personal supervisor. You produce two pieces of writing:
- a creative dissertation – a portion of a novel, a body of poetry, a play screenplay or other creative form of no more than 15,000 words; and
- a critical essay of approximately 3,000 words – considering the relationships between your own writing and the literary contexts/theoretical concerns that inform published writing in your chosen genre or form.
Your supervisor must agree in advance the final structure, approximate word length and for presentation conventions of these pieces.
30.00 credits
This module offers a regular and intensive review of your writing in one of the following genres: poetry, crime writing, prose fiction, biography, drama, scriptwriting or writing for children. You will be advised on how to strengthen your knowledge of the codes and conventions of your chosen genre to produce a substantial piece or collection of work that will reflect your knowledge of and engagement with your chosen genre. You will apply detailed feedback on your work to your writing as well as using your increased knowledge of your chosen genre to make your writing more effective. These elements will help you improve the key transferable skills of analysis and implementation that will feed forward into your dissertation module and into all analytical/practical tasks you subsequently undertake.
30.00 credits
This module provides the opportunity to examine ways in which reading is essential to writing practice and teaches you to apply literary techniques and strategies from contemporary fiction, life writing and poetry texts to your own work. You will develop the concept of 'reading as a writer' in order to explore how contemporary concerns are brought to the fore by artistic strategies, and examine how an understanding of these can provide models for your own creative practice. You will submit work including a reflective reading journal as well as a creative piece in a genre of your choice.
30.00 credits
The module is designed to introduce students to some issues of critical and literary theory. The module is also designed to make students more aware of how their work impacts upon wider literary, cultural, political and philosophical issues. Awareness of these theories and of some of the issues surrounding the production and reception of literary texts will stimulate them, encouraging creative and conceptual thinking. The module will explore debates about literature and the practice of creative writing through readings of essays and texts that are relevant to criticism and theory. The academic component of the assessment will support the creative work with the objective that students will also have to demonstrate critical, academic, analytical skills.
30.00 credits
In this module you will present and discuss your own and each other's work in a weekly workshop. The draft work presented may include several genres and forms, such as crime writing, fantasy fiction, children's literature, historical fiction, science fiction, romance and autobiography. Practical criticism of student writing will be accompanied by discussion of the scope or constraints of the various genres, as well as the implications of particular forms. Attention will be paid to the transferable components of good writing: appropriate use of language, narrative pace, dialogue, expression, characterisation and mood.
Optional placement year
Many postgraduate courses at Kingston University allow students to do a 12-month work placement as part of their course. The responsibility for finding the work placement is with the student; we cannot guarantee the work placement, just the opportunity to undertake it. As the work placement is an assessed part of the course, it is covered by a student's Student Route visa.
Find out more about the postgraduate work placement scheme.
Career opportunities
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.
- Stevan Alcock is another MA student whose debut novel – workshopped on our MA – was published by 4th Estate.
- Hannah Vincent is a former MFA student with novels out with Myriad Editions and Salt.
- Myriad Editions also run a writing competition each year aimed at finding new writers, with MFA student Karly Stilling winning in 2015. This year the award was won by another current Kingston student, Sylvia Carr. Former MA (now PhD student) Joseph Pierson was a recent runner up.
- Julia Lewis is a former MFA student and experimental poet who has gone on to publish a wide range of work. She also rewrote MA tutor James Miller's novel Lost Boys as a collection of experimental poetry.
- Stefan Mohamed won the Dylan Thomas Prize and has gone to have a successful career as a writer of YA fiction.
- MA student Vicky Newham signed a two book deal for her crime series. Vicky is on the Daggers longlist for the best crime novel by a first-time author.
- Faiqa Mansab published her debut novel This House of Clay and Water in Pakistan and India to great acclaim and it has been optioned by the talented Sheherzade Sheikh for screen adaptation.
- Other successes include Susie Lynes and Lauren Forry.
- Other former students have gone on to work in editorial posts in the publishing industry.
All successful applicants who take up their place with us in September will be entered into our competition to have a consultation with Annabel White, an agent at top London literary agency Curtis Brown.
So make sure the creative work you submit with your application is your very best – it might win you a meeting with a literary agent.
Teaching and assessment
Portfolios of exercises, edited and revised creative writing with evidence of extensive drafting, essays, presentations, research projects, substantial pieces of creative writing of publishable standard.
When not attending timetabled sessions, you will be expected to continue learning independently through self-study. This typically involves reading and analysing articles, regulations, policy documents and key texts, documenting individual projects, preparing coursework assignments and completing your PEDRs, etc.
Your independent learning is supported by a range of excellent facilities including online resources, the library and CANVAS, the University's online virtual learning platform.
At Kingston University, we know that postgraduate students have particular needs and therefore we have a range of support available to help you during your time here.
A course is made up of modules, and each module is worth a number of credits. You must pass a given number of credits in order to achieve the award you registered on, for example 360 credits for a typical undergraduate course or 180 credits for a typical postgraduate course. The number of credits you need for your award is detailed in the programme specification which you can access from the link at the bottom of this page.
One credit equates to 10 hours of study. Therefore 180 credits across a year (typical for a postgraduate course) would equate to 1,800 notional hours. These hours are split into scheduled and guided. On this course, the percentage of that time that will be scheduled learning and teaching activities is shown below. The remainder is made up of guided independent study.
- 6% scheduled learning and teaching
The exact balance between scheduled learning and teaching and guided independent study will be informed by the modules you take.
Your course will primarily be delivered in person. It may include delivery of some activities online, either in real time or recorded.
100% coursework.
We aim to provide feedback on assessments within 20 working days.
Workshops normally have between 6 and 12 students. To give you an indication of class sizes, this course normally enrols 15 to 20 students and lecture sizes are normally 10 to 20. However, this can vary by module and academic year.
Fees and funding
| Fee category | Fee |
|---|---|
| Home (UK students) | |
| Full Time | £10,300 |
| Part Time | £5,665 |
| International | |
| Full Time | £17,600 |
| Part Time | £9,680 |
| Fee category | Fee |
|---|---|
| Home (UK students) | |
| Full Time | £9,900 |
| Part Time | £5,445 |
| International | |
| Full Time | £16,900 |
| Part Time | £9,295 |
Funding support for postgraduate students
If you are a UK student living in England and under 60, you can apply for a loan to study for a postgraduate degree on the government's website.
Scholarships and bursaries
For students interested in studying Creative Writing MA at Kingston, there are several opportunities to seek funding support:
The Inspire the Future Scholarship offers a 40% reduction in fees for taught masters or postgraduate diploma courses with September start dates. 20 scholarships are available for progressing Kingston University graduates.
For more information on how to apply for this scholarship, visit the Inspire the Future Scholarship page.
International postgraduate students could receive up to £5,000 towards tuition in their first year of study.
For more information on how to apply for these scholarships, visit the International Scholarship page.
If you are a Kingston University 2024/25 undergraduate progressing to a 2025/26 postgraduate degree (taught or research), you could get a 15% reduction in tuition fees.
For more information on how to apply for this scholarship, visit the Postgraduate Progression Scholarship page.
Kingston University offers a 10% discount on full and part-time postgraduate degree course tuition fees to our alumni.
For more information on how to apply for this discount, visit our alumni discount page.
Additional course costs
Some courses may require additional costs beyond tuition fees. When planning your studies, you’ll want to consider tuition fees, living costs, and any extra costs that might relate to your area of study.
Your tuition fees include costs for teaching, assessment and university facilities. So your access to libraries, shared IT resources and various student support services are all covered. Accommodation and general living expenses are not covered by these fees.
Where applicable, additional expenses for your course may include:
Our libraries have an extensive collection of books and journals, as well as open-access computers and laptops available to rent. However, you may want to buy your own computer or personal copies of key textbooks. Textbooks may range from £50 to £250 per year. And a personal computer can range from £100 to £3,000 depending on your course requirements.
While most coursework is submitted online, some modules may require printed copies. You may want to allocate up to £100 per year for hard-copies of your coursework. It’s worth noting that 3D printing is never compulsory. So if you choose to use our 3D printers, you’ll need to pay for the material. This ranges from 3p per gram to 40p per gram.
Kingston University will pay for all compulsory field trips. Fees for optional trips can range from £30 to £350 per trip.
Your tuition fees don’t cover travel costs. To save on travel costs, you can use our free intersite bus service. This route links the campuses and halls of residence with local train stations - Surbiton, Kingston upon Thames, and Norbiton.
How to apply
Before you apply
Please read the entry criteria carefully to make sure you meet all requirements before applying.
How to apply online
Use the course selector drop down at the top of this page to choose your preferred course, start date and mode, then click 'Apply now'. You will be taken to our Online Student Information System (OSIS) where you will complete your application.
If you’re starting a new application, you’ll need to select ‘new user’ and set up a username and password. This will allow you to save and return to your application.
Application deadlines
We encourage you to apply as soon as possible. Applications will close when the course is full.
Information required to confirm your place
If English is not your first language, we will require proof of your proficiency to allow us to confirm your place on the course. This will generally be either an IELTS or TOEFL test certificate, which can be forwarded to us after you have submitted your application. If you do not hold a formal English language qualification, please indicate how you have acquired your proficiency in written and spoken English.
After you have applied
If the admission tutor wishes to see a portfolio from you, you will be sent an email within three weeks of the date of the email request. This will ask you to upload your zipped portfolio to the OSIS portal.
If the admissions tutor requires further information or wishes to invite you to an interview, they will contact you directly. You will then hear whether your application has been successful.
Course changes and regulations
The information on this page reflects the currently intended course structure and module details. To improve your student experience and the quality of your degree, we may review and change the material information of this course. Course changes explained.
Programme Specifications for the course are published ahead of each academic year.
Regulations governing this course can be found on our website.
Published alumni
Many of our graduates are now published authors. Find out what they have to say about how studying Creative Writing at Kingston helped progress their careers.
I will always love my time as a Kingston University Creative Writing MA student. The freedom to experiment, the fantastic support from the lecturers, the encouragement to take big, bold swings has helped me create the best work of my career so far. I discovered new interests that I will carry with me for the rest of my life, and only wish I could take the course all over again.
In 2018, I began my practice-based creative writing PhD, specialising in life writing around motherhood experience. This was something of a career change for me, and so I did not have a record of published creative or academic writing. That same year I published a piece of life writing, which had developed out of my work for the PhD application, as a chapter in a book entitled Everyday World-Making: Towards an Understanding of Affect and Mothering.
Later that year I presented the early stages of my research at a conference titled Women in Transition, which lead to another publication, this time a hybrid creative/essay piece in a book based on the conference.
Over the next couple of years, I wrote and presented elements of my practice and research at Writers Centre Kingston events, and at a conference organised by the Race/Gender Matters research group at Kingston. Following this conference, I joined the research group and went on to co-organise a Race/Gender Matters symposium entitled Visceral Bodies in 2023.
In 2021, I published a hybrid creative/essay chapter in a book entitled From Band-Aids to Scalpels: Motherhood Experiences in/of Medicine.
Throughout my PhD journey I have also published several pieces in online journals, including Failure: the Ghost and the Mother, Alluvium Journal, 2022, and But Also Flesh and Salt, The Contemporary Journal, 2023.
Recently, I have published poetry on the Dx: Diagnosis and Writing website, and in Motherlore magazine. I am currently co-editing a special issue of Studies in the Maternal journal (with a PhD student from the Philosophy department) based on the Visceral Bodies symposium and featuring my poetry.
The structure, support and networks afforded me by my studies at Kingston have been invaluable in getting my work out into the world.
From the beginning of my doctoral work at Kingston until I submitted my thesis I always felt supported by my supervisors. Their comments on my writing and my meetings with them were very productive. In addition, I received encouragement about my creative work which was a real boost. The University also provided platforms for readings and talks in which I participated – these were wonderful ways to practice for other events in which I have since participated. As I built up and edited my manuscript of poems, they became ready to send out which I did over my years as a PhD student.
Throughout my time at Kingston I published quite a lot of my creative work that came out of my thesis, including poems in various literary journals and a pamphlet of poems, Grief Dialogue (Rack Press). After I submitted my thesis, the manuscript that came out of the critical component was accepted for publication. The book, Boat of Letters, will appear in 2025.
I am quite sure that my publishing journey would have been very difficult were it not for Kingston University MFA.
Tutors like James Miller, Adam Baron, and Jonathan Barnes didn't just give me the nuts and bolts of the craft but also impressed upon me the importance of trusting my own voice, taking responsibility for the story I want to tell and to be flexible in my approach to craft so that I am always learning and growing.
I did the low-res MA in Creative Writing from 2015 to 2017 and it was the perfect fit for someone living outside the UK. The course was excellent on both theoretical and technical aspects, allowing me to figure out how best to write what I wanted to write. I was lucky to have the brilliantly warm and practical Paul Bailey as my dissertation adviser and still apply his insight to everything I write, although I am still guilty of a love of run-on sentences! Course head, Wendy Vaizey, gave me invaluable advice and confidence in my own style at a critical point – advice that saw my first novel subsequently accepted for publication.
Three of us from the class formed our own little writing group when the MA ended and still have a monthly Zoom workshop where we share and discuss our writing and our lives. This fourth novel, Greener, is about friendship and I was so proud to dedicate the book to them both.
The road to publication is paved with blood, coffee and numb fingers; don't let anyone tell you differently. Completing my MA and PhD at Kingston University was a challenging but wholly rewarding experience and one I wouldn't change for the world. The lectures, detailed supervision meetings, and workshopping creative pieces with fellow students were invaluable in taking my writing to the next level. Writing is a lonely profession, so being part of a community that pushes and motivates you to write your best work is special. I honed my skills as a fiction writer and an academic writer throughout my time at Kingston.
For my PhD, I wrote a historical thriller titled Bad Blood, which will be published in 2024 under my pen name, Luke Deckard, by Sharpe Books. This novel is the culmination of my time at Kingston, and not only am I thrilled to see it officially released into the wild, but I know Bad Blood wouldn't be what it is without the support and input I received over the years from my supervisors and colleagues I met and worked with along the way.
What our students and graduates say
The main reason I've chosen the MA in Creative Writing at Kingston University is the variety of genres you can choose from on the course. I am writing poetry, but I wanted to get involved with people who are writing other things so I could experiment with different genres and learn from them too. The MA in Creative Writing gives me that opportunity and lets me choose workshops that reflect exactly my style of writing.
One of the most useful parts of the course is the Elements of Professional Writing module, which focuses on the practical side of being a writer. It offers advice on everything from how to stay positive to how to present your work to get it published.
I chose to study at Kingston because unlike many writing courses, it allowed space for both fantasy and children's novels. I especially loved my Children's Literature class.
Another standout was my dissertation tutor, Liz Jensen, who gave me remarkably good and detailed feedback, and the lovely people in my writing workshops. I'm really glad I came to Kingston.
Once I finished my masters I returned to my home country, Ireland, where I write and live by the water. I started writing a fantasy novel for young adults, titled 'The Demon's Lexicon', whilst at Kingston, which has since been signed by Simon & Schuster.
This Creative Writing MA course gave me the structure, self-discipline and direction I needed. I've always written poetry – I started when I was just seven – but I have done it in a very unstructured way.
Completing work for the weekly writers' workshops has been very useful. I've attended creative writing evening classes before where we shared our work, but the comments and criticism from other students on the MA is at a much higher level.
