The programme lasts for one year (50 weeks), beginning in September, or two years (one hundred and two weeks) for part-time students. It consists of three terms. In the autumn and spring terms, students will meet for a workshop each week. In addition to the weekly workshop, students will take EN5114 Supplementary Discourses (Autumn term) and then EN5116 Reading as a Writer (Spring term). All courses will be supported by one-to-one tutorials with course tutors. No formal workshops will be held in the summer term, but students will be expected to have regular individual meetings with their tutors. In addition, during the summer term there is a programme of visiting speakers from the publishing industry, including writers, agents and editors.
EN5114: Supplementary Discourses
This is a weekly one-and-a-half hour seminar in the autumn term. It involves critical and theoretical reading designed to supply students with appropriate critical and theoretical discourse for discussing their own work and others. Students will need this for the Practical Work Project.
EN5116: Reading as a Writer
This is a weekly one-and-a-half hour seminar in the Spring term. Students will read a selection of contemporary fiction and poetry from the perspective of the writer.
EN5113: Practical Work Project
From May to September, students will undertake a major extended fiction, non-fiction, poetry or poetic practice project (under supervision).
EN5117: Dissertation
From May to September, students will be required to produce a critical and/or theoretical piece of writing relating to their Practical Work Project.
Teaching
Teaching is by weekly three-hour workshops during the autumn and spring terms, running from 2-5pm on Mondays. One-to-one meetings with the course teacher will also be arranged during these terms. In the Summer term, teaching will be done on a one-to-one basis. Teaching takes place in central London at 11 Bedford Square and 2 Gower Street. Both courses are designed to improve the quality of students’ creative work, and also to give them appropriate instruction as critics and readers. There is also advice about finding agents and publishers, given by visiting professionals in those fields during the summer term.
Assessment
There are three stages of assessment for all pathways. At the beginning of the spring term, prose writers will submit a 5,000-word piece of work and poets a portfolio of twelve pages, which will represent the work they have done during the previous autumn term. It will be returned to them and will be resubmitted with a second piece at the beginning of the summer term. These pieces will then be double marked. At the end of the course, fiction students will submit a 15,000 word piece of prose and poetry students will submit a portfolio of 24 pages; these submissions will again be double marked. In addition, all students will write a dissertation of 8-10,000 words [excluding bibliography and appendix] reflecting on this large-scale piece of work, to be submitted with their portfolio.
Robert Hampson|
In addition to Professor Robert Hampson's work on Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford – which includes the monographs Joseph Conrad: Identity and Betrayal (Macmillan, 1992), Cross-Cultural Encounters in Joseph Conrad’s Malay Fiction (Macmillan, 2000), and Conrad’s Secrets (forthcoming); the co-edited collections Ford Madox Ford: A Reappraisal (with Tony Davenport, 2002), and Ford Madox Ford and Modernity (with Max Saunders, 2003); and various Penguin editions, he has had a long involvement in contemporary poetry as both a critic and practitioner. He co-edited The New British poetries (with Peter Barry, 1993) and Frank O’Hara Now (with Will Montgomery, 2010). His own poetry has been published since the 1970s. Stride published Assembled Fugitives: Selected Poems, 1973-1998 in 2001, and Shearsman re-published his long poem Seaport in 2008. His most recent poetry publication is the sequence an explanation of colours, which was published by Veer in 2010.
Andrew Motion|
Director of MA Creative Writing is the poet, novelist and biographer Professor Andrew Motion who established the MA at Royal Holloway in 2004. Professor Motion was appointed Poet Laureate from 1999-2009 and has had a distinguished a publishing career as well as positions as Chair of the Arts Council Literature Panel and Vice-Chairman of the Poetry Society.
Jo Shapcott|
Professor Jo Shapcott's latest book of poems Of Mutability, was published in 2010, shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize and was awarded the Costa Prize for Book of the Year. The collection, Her Book: Poems 1988-1998 (2000), consists of a selection of poetry from her three earlier collections: Electroplating the Baby (1988), which won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for Best First Collection, Phrase Book (1992), and My Life Asleep (1998), which won the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Collection).
Susanna Jones|
Susanna Jones: BA (RHUL), MA (Manchester) is an award-winning novelist and has worked abroad, in Japan and Turkey, as an English teacher and radio script editor. She was lecturer in Fiction Writing at the University of Exeter from 2003-5. Susanna is the author of four novels, The Earthquake Bird (2001), Water Lily (2003), The Missing Person's Guide to Love (2007) and When Nights Were Cold| (2012). She has also published short stories and book reviews. Her writing has been translated into twenty languages and won awards including: The CWA John Creasey Dagger (2001), John Llewellyn Rhys Award (2001), the Betty Trask Award (2002) and Book of the Year (for the Hungarian translation, 2004) and Fiction Uncovered (2012). In 2014 she was the recipient of the inaugural Jerwood Fiction Uncovered/British Council residency in Korea.
Areas of interest: The novel; contemporary British and Japanese fiction; mystery and suspense; historical fiction; writing and the environment.
Kristen Kreider|
Dr. Kristen Kreider is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing (Poetry) and Director of the Practice-based PhD Programme| across the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences at Royal Holloway, University of London. In these roles, Kristen works to promote an interdisciplinary, socially engaged approach to poetry and poetics, and to encourage a rigorous dialogue between creative and critical practice. Kristen’s research is situated in the expanded field of contemporary poetry and text-based art where she specialises in the complex relationship between writing and site. Here she produces theoretical and critical writing, including a recent monograph entitled Poetics and Place: The Architecture of Sign, Subjects and Site (I.B. Tauris, Fall 2013), as well as practice-based outputs in collaboration with the architect James O’Leary. Combining visual, spatial and poetic practices to perform and interpret sites of architectural and cultural interest, the work of Kreider + O’Leary takes on many forms and has been exhibited in the UK as well as internationally in Europe, Australia, Japan and the United States. See: http://www.kreider-oleary.net
Will Montgomery|
Dr. Will Montgomery works on contemporary poetry and poetics. He is the author of The Poetry of Susan Howe: History, Theology, Authority (Palgrave, 2010) and he has recently co-edited (with Robert Hampson) Frank O’Hara Now: New Essays on the New York Poet (Liverpool UP, 2010). He has published many articles on contemporary poetry and is a member of the Poetics Research Group| at Royal Holloway. He is also involved, as both critic and practitioner, in contemporary experimental music, field recording and sound art.
Areas of interest : 20th century and contemporary poetry in the Modernist line; short form in poetry; sound in poetry and art practice.
Redell Olsen|
Dr. Redell Olsen's publications include: ‘Book of the Fur’ (Rempress, 2000), ‘Secure Portable Space’ (Reality Street, 2004) and the collaboratively edited ‘Here Are My Instructions’ (Gefn Press, 2004). She is the editor of the online journal How2| which publishes modernist and innovative poetry and poetics by women writers. Recent work is available in ‘Infinite Difference: Other Poetries by UK Women Poets’ (Shearsman, 2010) and ‘I’ll Drown My Book: ‘Conceptual Writing by Women” (Les Figues Press, 2011). Her recent projects have involved texts for performance and film and include: ‘Newe Booke of Copies’ (2009) and ‘Bucolic Picnic (or Toile de Jouy Camouflage)’ (2009). ‘The Lost Swimming Pool ‘; a site-specific collaboration was commissioned by the Creative Campus Initiative, June 2010. She has recently published articles on Frank O’Hara, Abigail Child and the relationship between contemporary poetics and the visual arts. She is a member of the RHUL Poetics Research Group| and a co-ordinator of POLYply| reading series at the Centre for Creative Collaboration, University of London.
Kate Williams|
Dr Kate Williams is an author, historian and television presenter. Her debut novel The Pleasures of Men was published by Penguin in 2012. Dr Williams has also published a series of historical biographies: Young Elizabeth: The Making of Our Queen (2012), Becoming Queen (2009) and England's Mistress (2006).
Entry requirements
The entry requirement for the course is normally at least an Upper Second in Single Honours English or Combined Honours English, but applicants with degrees in other subjects or with relevant publications will also be considered and are encouraged to apply. Applicants will need to display some ability in the area of creative writing: for the prose courses you will be required to complete the application form and to provide a 5,000-word sample of your work; those applying for the poetry course (or poetry within the Place, Environment, Writing programme) are also required to complete the application form and to provide at least 25 pages of their work. All applicants are also required to submit an example of their critical work [reviews will be accepted], up to 1,000 words in length. Applicants who get through to the second stage of consideration will normally be interviewed. An equivalent level of achievement is looked for in applications from overseas students. Non-standard applicants are welcomed and will be considered on their merits.
To apply, please visit Embark|.
Further information
For details of deposit payments and deadlines, please visit our dedicated web pages|. For any further information, please contact the postgraduate administrator Lisa Dacunha by email| or by telephone on (01784) 443215.
MA Creative Writing Open Day
To find out more about what RHUL can offer you, join us on our MA Creative Writing Open Day. The pathways on offer include Fiction, Poetry, and Poetic Practice.
This year's Open Day takes place on Tuesday 9 June 2015 at Senate House.
Click here for more information.|
Legal disclaimer
The information on this web site is accurate at the time of being up-loaded, but tutors may be changed and/or courses may be withdrawn in the light of tutor availability and student numbers. While, therefore, the English department makes every effort to run all listed courses, it cannot guarantee the availability of every course throughout the duration of each student's time on the MA course.