Creative Writing (Taught)

Study creative writing at Keele and you’ll join a thriving, close-knit and passionate community of academics, published writers, students and researchers. We share the same goals: to develop our creative and professional skills as a writer, build connections, support and inspire each other. Many of our graduates – ‘Keelites’ – have gone on to become successful novelists, authors, biographers and poets, including Stoke’s first poet laureate and winner of the Roy Fisher Prize. They’ve helped set up community-based literary festivals, artist in residence initiatives and even brought poetry to the masses via a car boot sale and a travelling ambulance.

Why choose this course?

• High staff-to-student ratio enhanced by small-group tutorials and a strong, inclusive research community

• Vibrant creative culture with extensive calendar of poetry, creative writing, broader performance and exhibition activities organised through ArtsKeele

• Keele Creative Writing Anthology lets you meet and hear live readings from published award-winning poets and novelists

• Workshops with tutors and peers throughout the course facilitate continuous feedback, providing opportunities to edit and revise your work before final submission

• Contribute to events, publications, workshops, competitions and short courses, broadening your experience

In our modern, uncertain and ever-changing world, words – written or spoken – are needed perhaps now more than ever to help us share experiences, process thoughts and feelings, and fuel our imagination.

The MA Creative Writing course at Keele brings together a strong community of published and aspiring writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and storytelling who, like you, appreciate the potential power of words and have embarked on a journey of self-expression.

You’ll be taught and mentored by published writers, prize-winning poets and novelists, both from here within the University and from the active participation of invited guests, for example, at the fortnightly Keele Creative Writing Anthology. Last year, this included acclaimed writer Okechukwu Nzelu, whose first book won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Polari First Book Prize.

You’ll also have the option to participate directly in a wide range of on campus, online and local events, publications, workshops and short courses. This provides experience in event management, curation, reading, presenting and even teaching, as well as the reviewing and editing that is often a writer’s secondary source of income.

About Keele

Keele University was established in 1949 by the former Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. Founded to meet the needs of a changing world, Keele has always had a pioneering vision to be a different kind of university.

We excel in both teaching and research, with some of the most satisfied students in England, and research that is changing lives for the better at a regional, national and global level.

Our beautiful 600-acre campus is one of the biggest in Britain – but all the most important services and facilities are on your doorstep, with accommodation, teaching spaces, facilities including a medical centre, sports centre and pharmacy, and a range of shops, eateries and entertainment venues – including the Students’ Union – clustered around the centre.