Creative Writing
Photograph by Joseph Caruana, DPhil Astrophysics
Taught programmes
MSt in Creative Writing
Course Code | 003360
The MSt is a two-year, part-time course offering a unique combination of high contact hours, genre specialisation, and critical and creative breadth.
The emphasis of the course is cross-cultural and cross-genre, pointing up the needs and challenges of the contemporary writer who produces his or her creative work in the context of a global writerly and critical community.
The MSt offers a clustered learning format of five Residences, two Guided Retreats and one Research Placement over two years. The Research Placement, a distinguishing feature of the course, provides between one and two weeks' in-house learning experience of writing in the real world.
- Length of programme: Two years, part-time study
- Core and optional courses:
The first year concentrates equally on prose fiction, poetry, dramatic writing and narrative non-fiction. There is a significant critical reading and analysis component, which is linked to the writerly considerations explored in each of the genres. In your second year you specialise in one of the following:- The novel
- Short fiction
- Radio drama
- TV drama
- Screenwriting
- Stage drama
- Poetry
- Narrative non-fiction
- Programme specification

How to ApplyThe deadlines for this course are 18 January and 8 March 2013.
The standard set of materials you should send
with any application to a taught course comprises: In addition to the standard documents above,
applicants to the MSt should provide one (1) relevant writing sample, comprising either (i) 2,000 words of prose fiction, or (ii) ten short poems, or (iii) fifteen' minutes equivalent of drama.
Please follow the detailed
instructions in the Application
Guide, and
consult the
Continuing Education website
for any additional guidance. |
Academic resources
Students have full access to the Bodleian Library and related libraries such as the English Faculty, the Taylorian (Modern Languages) and the Sackler (Art and Classics).
The course benefits from its association with the Kellogg College Centre for Creative Writing, which hosts masterclasses and seminar series, and is engaged in creative writing research.
Graduate destinations
Doctoral programmes in creative writing; teaching creative writing; publishing creative work in chosen field; careers in arts/media.