Creative Writing

UCAS code: W800

Here's what De Montfort University says about its Creative Writing course.

Find your voice and discover your own creative writing path through studying with us at DMU. By embedding stimulating themes throughout our distinctive course structure we give you the opportunity to develop skills across fiction, poetry, memoir, the graphic novel, screenwriting, non-fiction, audio and performance writing, concrete poetry and new media.

We welcome you if you're passionate about creative writing, eager to build on your strengths, and excited to discover new skills. You’ll learn from published writers and join a vibrant community of creatives who share your passion for writing.

Our programme is practical, where you learn by doing. Workshops focus on collaborative learning, where you give and receive feedback, draft and revise your work, and reflect critically. Industry-focused skills are integrated throughout, ensuring you develop the confidence to professionally promote, present, and publish your writing.

With an innovative thematic structure, the course encourages you to explore different forms and styles while giving you the flexibility to focus on your areas of interest. Uniquely, each year offers the opportunity to undertake your own self-directed long project, giving you the freedom to develop work that aligns with your creative ambitions.

Key features

• You can choose a route through this degree in Film Studies, History, Journalism, or Media, tailoring your studies to your interests and career goals.

• You’ll learn from successful published writers and become part of a creative and passionate community of fellow writers.

• The programme is uniquely organised by theme, supporting you in developing your skills across a wide range of writing practices, such as fiction, poetry, memoir, screenwriting, and digital writing.

• We’ll encourage you to join regional writing networks, participate in spoken word events, and showcase your work at book fairs and festivals, including DMU's annual States of Independence book festival.

• You’ll work beyond classroom boundaries in a variety of inspiring settings to enhance your creativity, such as Leicester Gallery at DMU, local museums and landmarks, DMU’s Special Collections archive, and ghost story workshops in a deconsecrated chapel.

• Benefit from block teaching, where most students study one subject at a time. A simple timetable will allow you to really engage with your learning, receive regular feedback and assessments, get to know your course mates and enjoy a better study-life balance.

First year Block 1: Exploring Creative Writing Block 2: Journeys and Places Block 3: Multimodal Writing Block 4: Shaping Ideas (year-long module)

Second year Block 1: Writing Identity Block 2: Exploring Work and Society Block 3: Story Craft Block 4: Word, Image, Sound (year-long module)

Third year Block 1: Screentime Block 2: Writing and Publishing Block 3: Uncreative Writing Block 4: Dissertation (year-long module)

We want to ensure you have the best learning experience possible and a supportive and nurturing learning community. That’s why we’re introducing a new block model for delivering the majority of our courses, known as Education 2030. This means a more simplified timetable where you will study one subject at a time instead of several at once. You will have more time to engage with your learning and get to know the teaching team and course mates. You will receive faster feedback through more regular assessment, and have a better study-life balance to enjoy other important aspects of university life.

Structure This degree programme is carefully designed to develop your potential by ensuring you encounter the full range of forms open to the 21st century creative writer, whilst also allowing you the flexibility to focus, for assignments, on projects and genres that interest you most. We want you to learn that practicing a particular kind of writing can hone your craft in a different form.

In the first year, the focus is upon shorter work, and the importance of developing your editing and re-drafting skills; and your capacity to accept and evaluate feedback from others. This process will enable you to take a critical and reflective approach to your work (Both creative and reflective writing will be assessed). But you will also practice shaping and developing your own ideas, and practice reading as a writer to learn new craft skills.

As you progress through your studies the assignments lengthen, and the focus upon research intensifies as you are expected to situate your own writing alongside your reading of other writers in your field. This involves developing a more sustained writing practice informed by an understanding of the conventions of particular genres, and your management of readers’ expectations. You will also consider how your sense of the ways in which creative work is published and marketed will help you understand how your own practice might fit in – or resist – contemporary conventions.

In all years, the modules reinforce the knowledge that reading and analysing the work of other practitioners – your fellow students included - will help you understand and develop your own formal and technical abilities.

You will experience a range of assessment modes alongside creative writing pieces in the core genres, for example, creative CVs, publications projects, case studies, field trips, and hypertext and audio-visual work. The bulk of the assessment is centred on creative writing coursework and critical reflection – you will take a reflective, critical, and analytical approach to their work and to learn to read as practitioners. You will gain insight into your own creative methods by situating your work in relation to other writers, research materials, and critical writings.

Contact hours You will be taught through a combination of workshops, lectures, tutorials, group work and self-directed study. In your first year you will normally attend around 10 hours of timetabled taught sessions (lectures and workshops) each week, and we expect you to undertake at least 28 further hours of independent study to complete project work and research.