Creative and Critical Writing PhD

About This Course

If you take this Creative and Critical Writing PhD or MPhil course you will experience:

One-to-one teaching and supervision by established writers and academics.
The opportunity to develop your own specific interests, working in the genre and style of your choice.
The flexibility to study on a full or part-time basis.
The opportunity to develop an awareness of your own writing and writing processes through combining creative and critical work, preparing you for a future career in writing or as an academic.

The Creative and Critical writing course provides you with the opportunity to work over an extended period on a collection of short stories, a novel or a collection of poems under the individual supervision of a writer actively publishing in your field. Your creative work will be accompanied by a critical commentary; researching this element will ensure that you are well read in your chosen field and have a good knowledge of current trends in writing. The thesis, comprising both the creative and critical components, is expected to have a word count of about 100,000 words (for prose).

What will you study on this course?

This Creative and Critical writing course provides the opportunity to work over an extended period on a collection of short stories, a novel or a collection of poems under the individual supervision of a writer actively publishing in your field. Your creative work will be accompanied by a critical commentary, which should be mainly focused on exploring some idea, topic, genre, theme, writer or group of writers that has a relationship with the creative work being undertaken. Researching this element will ensure a good knowledge of current literary concerns. The critical commentary should include a section in which you discuss your own work and the ways in which it relates to the literary texts you have discussed. The major component of the PhD is the creative element, which the critical commentary is intended to support. The creative element should be 70,000 to 80,000 words in length if prose. For poetry an equivalent length, depending on the exact nature of the creative work submitted, will be negotiated with your supervisor. The critical commentary should be 20,000 to 30,000 words. The thesis, comprising both creative and critical components, is expected to have a total word count of about 100,000 words or equivalent.

A first class or a good second-class degree. In many cases PhD applicants have studied to MA level, though this is not compulsory. Students without an MA are required to follow the research training module offered by the school. We are able to accept some students on a distance-learning basis, but they should have already acquired the skills taught in the introductory seminars, or should make arrangements to attend equivalent seminars at another institution, at their own expense.