English Literature with Creative Writing with a Placement Year

Overview

Do you love to write as much as you love to read? Do the books you read spark your imagination and inspire you to be creative? At UEA, we believe that good readers make good writers. That’s why we combine the study of English Literature and Creative Writing throughout all levels of this innovative course, allowing you to deepen your literary knowledge while developing your own creative voice.

You’ll immerse yourself in a thriving community of writers and thinkers. Learning from practicing writers and passionate teachers, you’ll sharpen your ability to sculpt language into stories, scenes, and images. You’ll build worlds, develop your voice and find ways to express yourself. Alongside this, you’ll study literature from around the world, past and present. You’ll discover how writers have expanded literary possibilities, made art out of lived experience and shown us what it means to be human. In doing so, you’ll become a more discerning and attentive reader and writer, ready to make your own mark on the literary world.

You’ll spend a third of your time on Creative Writing and two thirds on English Literature in your first two years of study. In your third year, you may increase the amount of Creative Writing that you do or focus more on Literature, developing a balance that best suits you. Your creative and literary training will go hand-in-hand, each enhancing the other, as you explore and experiment with diverse genres, forms, and subjects, from weird fiction, to lyric poetry, to the literature of emotion. You’ll normally spend 9-12 months of your third year in a placement, gaining invaluable work experience and employability skills in a relevant area of your choice.

You’ll be based in the UK’s original Creative Writing department, which is part of the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing. You’ll also have access to world-leading facilities and resources, from the technological delights of the Media Suite to the opportunities of our student-run publishing project Egg Box, from the riches of the British Archive for Contemporary Writing to the Sainsbury Centre. What’s more, you’ll live and work in the beautiful city of Norwich, a UNESCO City of Literature, and home to the National Centre for Writing.

Upon graduation, you'll have developed a wealth of skills that’ll open doors to many fulfilling careers, whether you want to work in the creative or cultural industries, or in business, marketing or social media management. Events such as Working with Words will give you the chance to connect with industry professionals and UEA alumni who have gone on to exciting careers in journalism, publishing, and freelance writing—offering invaluable insights and inspiration for your next steps.

Disclaimer

Course details are subject to change. You should always confirm the details on the provider's website: www.uea.ac.uk