creative writing university of east anglia

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Creative Writing: Prose Fiction

Entry requirements.

Degree Subject - Any Subject

Degree Classification - Bachelors (Hons) degree (2.1 or equivalent preferred)

For more information see our website .

Months of entry

Course content.

The MA Prose Fiction at UEA is the oldest and most prestigious Creative Writing programme in the UK. Solely focused on the writing of fiction, we take a rigorous and creative approach to enable you to develop your ideas, voice, technique and craft.

You’ll experience an intensive immersion in the study of writing prose fiction. You will take core creative modules but can also choose from a wide range of critical modules, and benefit from our proven strengths in modernism and creative-critical studies, among others.

Graduates of our MA Creative Writing Prose Fiction have enjoyed extraordinary success in terms of publications and prizes. Our alumni include Nobel Laureate Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, Baileys Women’s Prize-winner Naomi Alderman, Emma Healey and Tash Aw. The continuing success of our graduates means we are fortunate in being able to attract the best writers from around the world – writers like you.

While you are at UEA, the focus will very much be on exploring your creative potential, in a highly supportive and well-resourced environment.

In 2011, UEA’s Creative Writing programme was awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in recognition of our continuing excellence in delivering innovative courses at a world-class level.

Information for international students

For more information for international students, please go to UEA’s website .

Fees and funding

Find out more about UEA’s funding options .

Qualification, course duration and attendance options

• Campus-based learning is available for this qualification

Course contact details

Creative Writing Research Group

• Faculty of Arts and Humanities
• School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
• Website https://www.uea.ac.uk/groups-and-centres/creative-writing-research-group

Organisation profile

For half a century Creative Writing has proved one of our most productive and successful areas of research. Each piece of prose fiction and creative non-fiction, each poetry collection, script or dramatic production that emerges out of our school constitutes a research project informed by historical investigation, archival study or critical interrogation.

Our work in these diverse forms repeatedly extends the boundaries whereby those forms are understood and valued. Our writers also contribute important critical studies of the creative practices in which they lead the world.

Our research is taught and developed in the classroom, making us a place where ground-breaking experimental practice and practice-based research flourish. International, national and local creative writing research is enhanced by close collaboration with the  National Centre for Writing , the  British Centre for Literary Translation , the  British Archive for Contemporary Writing  and a range of international associations. Our students doing PhDs in creative and critical writing benefit from access to a sophisticated training schedule run by active practitioners who are leaders in their fields.

Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

Dive into details.

Select a country/territory to view shared publications and projects

Nathan Ashman

• School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing - Lecturer in Crime Writing
• Creative Writing Research Group - Member
• Modern and Contemporary Writing Research Group - Member

Person: Research Group Member, Academic, Teaching & Research

Tiffany Atkinson

• School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing - Professor in Creative Writing (Poetry)

Trezza Azzopardi

• School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing - Lecturer
• 18 Finished

Projects per year

A partnership for community-led health behaviour change research in areas of high socio-economic disadvantage

Hardeman, W. , Gordon, J. , Hanson, S. , Minihane, A. , Sweeting, A. , Abranches, M. , McNeil, J. , McWatt, T. , Robinson-Pant, A. & Varley, A.

National Institute for Health and Care Research

1/06/23 → 30/11/24

Project : Research

The Critical Decade for Climate Change

Le Quéré, C. , McNeil, J. & Tebboth, M.

Leverhulme Trust

1/10/21 → 30/09/27

Project : Training

Just Scapes

Martin, A. & McNeil, J.

Economic and Social Research Council

1/12/20 → 31/05/24

Research output

• 136 Article
• 71 Performance
• 16 Other contribution
• 8 Chapter (peer-reviewed)
• 8 Book/Film/Article review
• 5 Featured article
• 4 Special issue
• 3 Editorial
• 2 Entry for encyclopedia/dictionary
• 2 Foreword/postscript
• 2 Other chapter contribution
• 2 Conference article
• 2 Digital or Visual Products
• 1 Anthology
• 1 Comment/debate
• 1 Exhibition

Research output per year

1939: Before Darkness Fell

Research output : Contribution to specialist publication › Article

Indigo Giant (UK production and national tour of stage play)

Research output : Non-textual form › Performance

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Research output : Book/Report › Book

Arts Council Developing Your Creative Practice Grant

Robinson, S. (Recipient), 1 Sep 2021

Prize : Prize (including medals and awards)

BBC Audio Drama Awards 2023

Waters, Steve (Recipient), 19 Mar 2023

Prize : National/international honour

BBC NATIONAL SHORT STORY AWARD

Wood, Naomi (Recipient), 27 Sep 2023

• 52 Festival/Exhibition/Performance
• 36 Public lecture/debate/seminar
• 16 Participation in conference
• 13 Invited talk
• 13 Visiting an external academic institution
• 9 Examination
• 4 Participation in workshop or seminar
• 3 Committee
• 2 Publication editorial role
• 1 Publication peer-review
• 1 Social or cultural organisation
• 1 Public/government panel or group
• 1 Research and teaching at external organisation

Activities per year

Norwich Book Slam

Tom Benn (Speaker)

Activity : Participating in or organising an event › Public lecture/debate/seminar

Murder One Crime Writing Festival 2023 (Dublin)

Activity : Participating in or organising an event › Festival/Exhibition/Performance

Historical Debuts: Writing the Past for the Present with Jacqueline Crooks, Bridget Walsh and Natalie Marlow (Noirwich Crime Writing Festival 2023)

Press/media.

1 Media contribution

Press/Media : Press / Media

'Working Class Noir' (The Writing Life podcast, National Centre for Writing)

Q&a with tom benn for nb. magazine issue 116, light (sunday times young writer of the year).

Celebrating 50 Years of Creative Writing at UEA

A message from Director of Creative Writing at UEA, Henry Sutton.

Posted on 1 October 2020

Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia is 50 years old!

We are excited to share with you our programme to celebrate the UK’s oldest and most prestigious degree in creative writing.  Beginning on October 1 st we launch a series of innovative events to celebrate the past and look forward to the future – not only of our writing programme, but of imaginative writing.

View the celebratory booklet which outlines our plans for this anniversary year.

Our plans include:

Our new International Chair of Creative Writing and Global Voices Scholarship programme, which celebrates leading writers from around the globe while continuing UEA’s tradition of nurturing the world’s most promising emerging writers. Its first chair will be the internationally acclaimed Zimbabwean novelist, playwright and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga , whose novel This Mournable Body has just been shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize.

A suite of specially-commissioned videos celebrating the incredible accomplishments of graduates of our courses and casting forward to the future. Made entirely during the strict lockdown period that prevailed from March to June of this year, this is a personal look at the course and its literary legacy from Ian McEwan, Tracy Chevalier, Louise Doughty, Tash Aw and Ayanna Gillian Lloyd .

See our CW50 video at: https://tinyurl.com/y373k78o

As well as looking back to our impressive legacy, UEA is looking forward to the future of imaginative writing. With Arts Council England funding and backing from regional cultural and educational organisations, we are pleased to announce our Future and Form project. Over nine months, six emerging and established writers – Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, Mona Arshi, Tash Aw, Imogen Hermes Gowar, Mitch Johnson and James McDermott – will work alongside creative technologists, local young people, schools and cultural organisations to find new ways to create, share and experience literature and storytelling through immersive and interactive technologies. The works will be displayed online and in a region-wide exhibition in Norwich in spring 2021.

UEA Live is the new name and direction of the renowned UEA Literary Festival. Our CW50 year line-up offers inclusive, challenging and engaging voices. Its autumn 2020 event series is launched online, featuring literary legends Lee Child, Ian McEwan, Diana Evans and Bernardine Evaristo .

Finally, we recognise the challenges we are all experiencing this year, across the literary and cultural sectors and indeed society at large, and we thank you for your support and interest in our birthday celebrations under difficult circumstances. We hope to see you online at one of these stimulating and thought-provoking events soon, and look forward to being in touch into the future.

Henry Sutton

Director of Creative Writing

Header Image: Malcolm Bradbury (left), Angus Wilson (right) | Credit: Archant Library

Middle Image:

Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ (top left) | Credit: Cannongate

Mona Arhsi (top middle) | Credit: Amanda Pepper Photography

Tash Aw (top right) | Credit: Tara Sosrowardoyo

Imogen Hermes Gowar (bottom left) | Credit: Lee Jandrell

Mitch Johnson (bottom middle) | Credit: Harriet Johnson

James McDermott (bottom right) | Credit: Abi Bansal

If you have a query which you cannot find the answer to on our website, please feel free to contact us.

[email protected]

UEA Live Public Events & Engagement University of East Anglia Norwich Research Park NR4 7TJ

+44(0) 1603 592130

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Welcome to our School.

In our corridors you'll bump into world-class writers about literature and into the people who are writing literature today: prose, poetry, plays. It's that thrilling meeting of criticism and creativity – reading and writing, thinking and doing – that makes our School such a special place.

This is why we say that UEA is the place where literature lives .

Browse all our courses

Unlocking the archive

The translator as creative writer

Celebrating W.S. Graham at 100

Noirwich - the home of crime writing

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Browse our upcoming events

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MA Creative Writing Poetry

University of east anglia uea, different course options.

• Key information

Course Summary

Tuition fees, entry requirements, university information, similar courses at this uni, key information data source : idp connect, qualification type.

MA - Master of Arts

Subject areas

Poetry Writing

Course type

You’ve been writing poetry for so long that it’s become a vital part of your life. You may have tried one-off workshops or short courses but find that they are no longer enough. So now is the time to take it further!

This MA is your chance to immerse yourself in writing and reading, and discover more about your imaginative, artistic and intellectual capabilities as a poet. You’ll work intensively on your writing practice with expert guidance and support. And you’ll be part of a group that’s of a consistently high standard, which offers (and expects in return) rigorous feedback and discussion.

An academic context allows you to develop yourself through learning more about poetry across time and place, about form and technique, concept and theory, cause and effect. It’s a chance to read the kinds of poetry you’ve never come across before, and to discover the potential of poetry beyond the forms and approaches you already know.

In our MA Creative Writing (Poetry), we aim to support you in writing poetry of a publishable standard, and to create an encouraging but rigorous environment. You’ll join UEA’s renowned creative writing community in Norwich, a beautiful and historic UNESCO City of Literature.

During the one-year (or two-year part-time) course of intensive reading, writing, exploration and risk-taking, you’ll develop a body of work close in length to a first collection. Through your two Poetry Workshops, you’ll be encouraged to test, extend and refine your poetic technique – an experience that is often exciting and sometimes uncomfortable, but always rewarding. With this in mind, we also give you the chance to learn more about publishing procedures and opportunities, readings, literary awards and more. In the Describing Poetry module that accompanies the first Poetry Workshop, you will be introduced to some of the key thinking about poetry throughout literary history, and encouraged to explore creative-critical approaches to your work. You’ll also choose an optional module from a wide range of creative and critical modules across the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. You’ll benefit from the ways in which the study of poetry enhances analytical, conceptual and verbal skills, as well as refine your powers of precision, argument and logic.

Within UEA’s world-famous writing community, you’ll have the opportunity to meet some of the UK’s leading poets and poetry editors, and to benefit from their insight and expertise. Our annual anthology is professionally published and distributed to a key list of poetry houses and other contacts.

UEA also hosts an annual Poetry Festival, part of which is an event showcasing the MA poets’ work. You’ll have the opportunity to attend a masterclass and to discuss your writing one-to-one with the Poetry Festival Fellow. UEA is also part of a thriving network of regional poetry activity, which offers plenty of opportunities to gain performance experience and to get involved in publication.

UK fees Course fees for UK students

For this course (per year)

International fees Course fees for EU and international students

Bachelors (Hons) degree - 2.1 or equivalent preferred in any subject. Candidates will be expected to submit a portfolio of writing for assessment - up to 20 pages of poetry.

The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a world-renowned university known for its high standard across both taught and research postgraduate courses. Based in Norwich, in the county of Norfolk, the university has an excellent international reputation for the high standard of its research output. UEA is home to over 17,000 students, of which around 25% are postgraduate students. UEA is part of one of the biggest research communities in Europe... more

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