Programme Delivery

What does this course offer?

  • The opportunity to work closely on your writing in small, specialised groups, with expert tuition
  • The ability to choose your courses to fit personal goals
  • The ability to tailor your timetable according to your needs, with a combination of day-time, early evening and ‘compact’ or low-residency courses
  • A choice of full-time or part-time routes
  • Many opportunities to learn from respected, practicing writers and editors and hear from famous authors
  • A placement with a creative or cultural organization.

How will I be assessed?

Students are assessed continuously during the course, submitting specified creative work alongside commentaries on their own creative practice.

What will I learn?

On successful completion of this programme, students should be able to:

  • Produce well-crafted writing in one of the forms of creative writing
  • engage with and reflect on a diversity of writing practices
  • express an awareness of the role of technique and craft in their own work, that of their peers, and that of other writers
  • understand the importance of editing and revision in the production of a manuscript.
  • express an awareness of the creative process in their own work, that of their peers, and that of other writers
  • discuss the conceptual challenges of the creative process
  • understand the practical constraints and professional opportunities of life as a writer
  • pursue an extended Master’s level research and writing project, showing discipline-appropriate research, writing and technical skills, developed through clear and recordable processes of enquiry and selection and demonstrated in a c.15,000 word dissertation

How is the MA Timetabled?

The MA in Creative Writing is taught on Mondays and Tuesdays during Semester 1 (Autumn) and Semester 2 (Spring), which run from September to April. The expected seminar hours from is around 6 – 9 per week , depending on your module choices, and expected reading hours / writing assignments will be around another 8 hours per week. The course involves a mixture of seminars, workshops; placement and writing practice and students will also work on self-reflexive essays and projects.

MODULES

SEPTEMBER – APRIL: Part 1 (50 credits)

Part 1 of the MA in Creative Writing has one compulsory module, a 5-credit module The Business of Writing. Students select an additional 45 credits in consultation with Creative Writing staff to ensure coherence and workload balance.

Core Modules:

EN6034 The Business of Writing (5 credits)

Elective Modules:

EN6058 Craft and Technique of Fiction (1): The Short Story (10 credits)

EN6056 Craft and Technique of Fiction (2): Reading the Novel (5 credits)

EN6031 Poetry 1 (10 credits)

EN6042 Workshop with Writer-in-Residence (5 credits)

EN6032 Fiction Workshop (10 credits)

EN6033 Writing the Self: Fiction and non-Fiction (10 credits)

EN6043 Poetry 2 (5 credits)

EN6057 Writing for Media (5 credits)

 

MAY – SEPTEMBER: Part II 
EN6040 Dissertation (40 credits)

The Creative Writing dissertation is a substantial piece of creative writing, usually in a single genre. You will receive support and supervision to help shape a well-crafted and well-structured piece of writing. The Dissertation counts for the final 40 credits of your degree.

 

Part-time option

The part-time option for the MA in Creative Writing is offered biannually. Taking the course part-time takes 24 months. We will be taking a part-time cohort in September 2015, and another in 2017. Part-time students take the core module in their first year (5 credits), and then choose options to make up 50 credits over two academic years. This is done in consultation with Creative Writing staff to ensure coherence and workload balance. We generally advise a balance of 25 or 30 credits in Year 1, and 25 or 20 credits in Year 2. The Dissertation module is only available in the second year.

Fees

2017 / 2018 Irish/EU Fee: €6,500 full-time; €3,250 per year part-time.

2017 / 2018 Non-EU Fee: €13,000 full-time.