east anglia university creative writing

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
• 15 Invited talk
• 13 Visiting an external academic institution
• 9 Examination
• 5 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

World Book Night talk - Leicester Central Library

Tom Benn (Speaker)

Activity : Participating in or organising an event › Invited talk

An Audience with Tom Benn (online interview with KR Moorhead)

Arvon, hebden bridge residential writing week: fiction (lead tutor).

Activity : Participating in or organising an event › Participation in workshop or seminar

Press/Media

Tom benn on representation, beatrix potter and ‘oxblood’ (writers on research).

1 Media contribution

Press/Media : Press / Media

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

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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

Meet the people who will help you write tomorrow's literature.

• Faculties and Schools
• Faculty of Arts and Humanities
• School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
• Creative Writing
• Why Study Here?
• UNESCO Visiting Professor
• Royal Literary Fund Fellow
• Our Research
• Our Resources
• Your Career
• Writing Fellowships
• New Writing
• Publishing Project
• Postgraduate Research and PhD Opportunities
• Careers and Our Alumni
• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

In addition to the guidance you receive from our faculty staff, who are featured below, you might also find yourself receiving feedback from our  UNESCO Visiting Professor , or taking advantage of the support offered by our Royal Literary Fund Fellow .

Our Creative Writing programme was established by the novelist-critics Angus Wilson and Malcolm Bradbury. Many other significant writers have since led the programme or taught on our courses, including Angela Carter, Patricia Duncker, Richard Holmes, Andrew Motion, Michèle Roberts, W.G. Sebald, George Szirtes and Rose Tremain.

You can find details of some of these illustrious former faculty, as well as the impressive array of Visiting Professors, Teaching Fellows and Tutors who have taught on our programme, on UEA Writers .

• Short Stories
• The Writing Life
• Historical Research

How I spent the pandemic: MA in Crime Fiction Writing at University of East Anglia

I am not the kind of writer who gets to a certain point in their development and decides that they’ve learned enough, that they’re good enough. I enjoy studying the craft of writing and continuing to improve as a writer. But as I become a more knowledgeable and well-trained writer (a process which took many years), it becomes increasingly hard to find appropriately advanced learning opportunities.

In 2015, I stumbled on the announcement of a new low residency, part time creative writing degree– the MA in Crime Fiction Writing at University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, UK. At the time, it was the only creative writing program focusing on crime fiction in the world. I was immediately interested, but I no sooner discovered its existence than I dismissed the course as impracticable and unaffordable for me in the United States. But for the next four years, I periodically revisited the UEA site and fantasized.

The discovery also set into motion an intermittent exploration and daydreaming about, what I initially thought, were more practical, low residency MFA programs closer to home in the United States. Off and on, over the course of a couple of years, I created a massively detailed comparison spreadsheet of pertinent writing programs. From time to time, I added to it with the results of my investigations– answers to questions I’d emailed to directors and alumni, notes about conferences I’d attended on various campuses, and even a meeting with a recruiter.

Gradually, I let go of preconceptions. You might suspect that I rationalized my initial intention. Maybe. But when I eventually analyzed and compared costs and did cold hard financial calculations, I came to an unexpected realization. UEA’s MA in Crime Fiction Writing was not more expensive than an American MFA; it was less. And it might be the best fit for me for a number of reasons:

• No other MA/MFA specialized in crime fiction. In the past, I’d taken a number of workshops focused on genre fiction or fiction in general. While they were worthwhile and I learned a lot, I wanted to focus on crime fiction specifically and exclusively–to be with faculty who specialized in crime fiction and to be with classmates who shared my love of crime fiction.
• I wanted a rigorous academic approach to crime fiction, to explore the theory, philosophy, politics, and socio-economics of crime fiction as well as the practice of writing it. (Take a look at the amazing reading list )
• At the time, before Brexit, international students paid the same tuition fees to UEA as UK residents and that was a very good value, and much less than low residency MFA tuition in the U.S. I realized the money saved could be applied toward travel abroad for the short residentials.
• The MA in Crime Fiction requires three brief residencies a year (September, January, May) in Norwich, UK. For students in the UK and Europe, this was an easy, convenient, and relatively inexpensive trip. For those of us in the rest of the world, it was quite a hurdle and had me stymied for a long time. (However attendance at residential turned out to be somewhat negotiable and once the pandemic hit, it became a non-issue as everything went online anyway). Gradually I came to realize that the extra expense of the residential trips could be combined with side trips in the UK and Europe, very much longed for and deferred side trips. And, the kicker– the cost of travel for the residential did not come to more than the cost of an American low residency MFA.
• Attending would in fact be remedying a lifelong regret at not doing college study abroad and checking off an item on the bucket list that I didn’t even know I had. Win!

So, I applied to UEA, was accepted, figured out how to pay international tuition, obtain a short term study visa for residencies, and travel to Norwich.

UEA’s MA in Crime Fiction was the right decision for me.

The required fiction reading, literary criticism reading, and analytic writing were excellent. The creative writing module was excellent. Faculty (tutors in British-speak) were excellent and possessed deep and broad knowledge of crime fiction. Classmates were talented and hard working and generally all-round excellent people who were a joy to be around.

Attending was not only a taste of study abroad and a chance to travel, it was also a surprisingly interesting and satisfying chance to experience another culture.

The city of Norwich was fantastic with an incredibly rich history and lots of medieval buildings. In my two visits for the first two residencies before the pandemic hit, I became a huge fan of Norwich.

After the first semester of the two year course, the pandemic hit. Fun. Residencies became entirely virtual. Which worked okay for classwork (other than the time differences around the world. The morning session began at 5am Eastern for me and my classmate in Japan ended the last session of the day at 3am Japanese time). Online wasn’t as satisfactory for socializing. My classmates and I were sad that we couldn’t see each other in person for lunch and dinner and tea breaks and hanging out during residencies. It wasn’t possible to mingle, meet, and get to know the cohorts in front of us or coming up behind us. Fortunately we’d established a WhatsApp group before the pandemic and we instituted monthly zoom socials. But it wasn’t the same.

On the other hand, surprisingly, most of us agreed that it was great to be “on the course” (British speak) during the pandemic–it gave us something to focus on other than the garbage fire that was the current state of the world. It gave us goals and filled the hours spent confined at home. As hard as it was to concentrate sometimes during the pandemic, my guess is, it would have been even harder to juggle the coursework with life and work in normal busy times. So, an unexpected pandemic silver lining!

The coursework was substantial and a bit shocking if you’ve been out of school for a while as most of us had, but manageable. The final project is a complete crime novel that has been written and workshopped over the preceding two years. Also manageable.

For more info, check out my uncomprehensive twitter list of UEA MA in Crime Fiction alumni, current students, faculty, and guest lecturers, or tweet or email me any questions.

• Search for:
• New medieval mystery short story: “For All His Worth”
• The Powerful Magic of a Simple Notebook

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PhD Postgraduate Research in Creative Writing

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.

PhD/DPhil - Doctor of Philosophy

Subject areas

Creative Writing

Course type

We are a top tier, research-led university and are committed to making a substantial impact on the global challenges facing society. Our postgraduate researchers have opportunities to work at the heart of active research teams, challenging boundaries and making real advances.

Staff research interests in Creative Writing include: Creative writing; Life writing and creative non-fiction; Working closely with an academic supervisor gives you the support to carry out your own independent research and make your own mark. We have a wealth of remarkable academics, but how do you know which team will be right for you?

We suggest you look at the School's website, check out some academics and read up on some of their publications. We recommend that you identify at least one member of staff at UEA who might be your supervisor and that you contact them, to express your interest and discuss your research proposal.

UK fees Course fees for UK students

For this course (per year)

International fees Course fees for EU and international students

The minimum academic requirement for entry to a doctoral degree is a UK upper second class undergraduate honours degree and a Master's degree, or equivalent.

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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