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BA (Hons) Creative Writing

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Be taught by award-winning poets, fiction and non-fiction writers

Develop your talent in a supportive and encouraging environment

Explore genres from popular fiction and soaps to literary texts

This course includes the options of:

Work placement*

Study abroad*

*No fees are charged for this year


UCAS code	W800
Institution code	H36
School of study	School of Humanities
Course length	Full Time, 3 Years Part Time, 6 Years Sandwich, 4 Years
Location	University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield

Entry requirements

UCAS points A Level BTEC
104 BCC DMM

Additional requirements

GCSE: Grade 4/C in English Language and 4/D Mathematics
All students from non-majority English speaking countries require proof of English language proficiency, equivalent to an overall IELTS score of 6 with a minimum of 5.5 in each band.
If you do not have the required IELTS or equivalent for direct entry on to your degree programme, our Pre-sessional English and International Foundation courses can help you to achieve this level.
For more details on the University of Hertfordshire's entry requirements, please visit our Undergraduate Entry Requirements page.
Find out more about International Entry Requirements.
The University of Hertfordshire is committed to welcoming students with a wide range of qualifications and levels of experience. The entry requirements listed on the course pages provide a guide to the minimum level of qualifications needed to study each course. However, we have a flexible approach to admissions and each application will be considered on an individual basis.

UCAS points A Level BTEC IB
112-120 BBC-BBB DMM-DDM 112-120

Additional requirements

GCSE: Grade 4/C in English Language and 4/D Mathematics
Access course tariff: An overall merit profile in 45 credits at Level 3.
All students from non-majority English speaking countries require proof of English language proficiency, equivalent to an overall IELTS score of 6.5 with a minimum of 5.5 in each band.
If you do not have the required IELTS or equivalent for direct entry on to your degree programme, our Pre-sessional English and International Foundation courses can help you to achieve this level.
For more details on the University of Hertfordshire's entry requirements, please visit our Undergraduate Entry Requirements page.
Find out more about International Entry Requirements.
The University of Hertfordshire is committed to welcoming students with a wide range of qualifications and levels of experience. The entry requirements listed on the course pages provide a guide to the minimum level of qualifications needed to study each course. However, we have a flexible approach to admissions and each application will be considered on an individual basis.
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UCAS points	A Level	BTEC
104	BCC	DMM

UCAS points	A Level	BTEC	IB
112-120	BBC-BBB	DMM-DDM	112-120

Why choose this course?

Do you have a passion for writing? Spend your time writing stories instead of doing your homework? No need to choose anymore. With this course, writing stories is your homework. You’ll be taught by leading poets, fiction, and non-fiction writers. All our lecturers are active writers in their field. Some are even internationally published authors. This means you’ll be learning from writers who have excellent industry connections and have the latest knowledge when it comes to trends, styles, and publishing guides. In short, they have everything you need to become a published author yourself.

Here are some of your lecturers:

Poetry lecturer Dr Wayne Holloway-Smith, winner of the Poetry Society’s Geoffrey Dearmer Prize and Seamus Heaney Prize nominee.
Fiction and Non-Fiction writer, Dr Lorna Gibb, author of five books, winner of the Granta Memoir prize and shortlisted for the Sperber Biography prize in the US.
Dramatists Simon Vinnicombe and Drew Pautz, with writing credits that include the whole range of scriptwriting, from work in current production as feature films to EastEnders to the Old Vic and Royal Court. They have international reputations with performances, in original and translated versions, in Canada, Europe and the United States.
Fiction and non-fiction writer, Helen Gordon, a former editor at the renowned, world-famous publisher Granta, with two acclaimed books and numerous short publications.

Find out more about the programme tutors in the UH Arts showcase series Family Is.

What's the course about?

Creative Writing is more than just writing stories. It’s about learning how to engage your readers, how to capture their attention. It’s about how to communicate with others; to help them see the world through your eyes, while still giving them space to use their own views. You can use these skills in many fields and career paths, including marketing, education and even business.

You’ll learn about different genres, cultures, and eras when it comes to writing. You can join competitions in poetry, prose, fiction, drama, and short stories. You’ll learn the theory that underpins what writing is about. You’ll then put into practice what you learnt. You’ll be given writing tasks; read each other’s stories and comment on the stories you have read for that week. As homework you’ll write stories, poetry, and prose, which you’ll then discuss in a friendly class environment with your course mates.

In your first year, your modules will focus on giving you a solid understanding of what it means to be a writer and what genres are out there. You’ll study writing for the screen, learn to interpret stories and delve into contemporary as well as traditional writing.

In your second year, you’ll learn more about the art of writing to an audience. You’ll also look at writing for the stage, literature, and poetry. You’ll choose two optional modules that suit your interests, for example how to make a historical documentary or 20th century literature. Our students can choose a work experience module, Literature at Work, which explores English in the classroom and aspects of the literary heritage industry. The module is centred around a six-week work placement where you’ll gain valuable transferable skills. Our students have worked as school classroom assistants, in publishing houses or attractions such as London’s Charles Dickens Museum and Dr Johnson’s House.

Study abroad/work placement option: In between your second and third year, you can take an optional study abroad or work placement year. During this year you have the chance to study at one of our partner universities in a different country or spend a year in industry gaining valuable experience. If you prefer, you can go straight to your third year without this ‘extra’ year in between. The choice is all yours.

In your third year, most modules are optional. That means you can choose the ones you like the most and really tailor your degree to what you want to do in life. You’ll delve deeper into the thin line between reality and fiction and examine the ethical questions this raises. You will take a compulsory module on writing for popular fiction markets, to increase your employability. Lastly, if you are studying BA (Hons) Creative Writing, you will work on a final year writing project in the genre of your own choosing, with one to one tutor support throughout. You will have produced something to be proud of that you can take with you when you leave university.

If you'd like more information, contact Lorna Gibb.

Your main campus is de Havilland

You’ll share this campus with students from business, law, sport, education, and humanities subjects. The student housing is close to our Sports Village which includes a gym, swimming pool and climbing wall. You can get breakfast, lunch, or dinner in our on-campus restaurant or bar (in the newly built Enterprise Hub) on days you don’t feel like cooking. You can also use the common room to play pool, video games or just to hang out with friends.  Our Learning Resources Centres are open 24/7, which means you can study whenever suits you best. Want to pop over to the other campus? You can take the free shuttle bus or walk there in just 15 minutes.  

What will I study?

Degree programmes are structured into levels, 4, 5 and 6.  These correspond to your first, second and third/final year of study.  Below you can see what modules you’ll be studying in each.  

Level 4

Module	Credits	Compulsory/optional
Becoming a Writer	15 Credits	Compulsory
This module is a practice-based course, taught by weekly two-hour workshop. Building on the study of the short story begun on 'The Writer's Art', the module will explore diverse examples of this genre from the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Writers chosen for study will vary from year to year but might include work by Kazuo Ishiguro, Raymond Carver, Angela Carter, Katherine Mansfield, Thomas Hardy and Henry James. The stories will be used as the basis for workshop discussion and activities including close analysis of literary techniques. You will be encouraged to develop your own creative writing through a portfolio of on-going work and by working towards the completion of your own short story.
Genre Fiction: Building Worlds	15 Credits	Compulsory
Building compelling and convincing worlds is important in all fiction, but it is particularly crucial in writing genre fiction. When writing genre (or popular) fiction, writers must be critically aware of both the history of the genre and current trends in publishing in order to make their own narratives distinctive and ultimately sell-able. This module will examine two popular genres (such as fantasy, crime, sci-fi or romance). Key questions of craft and motivation will be asked: how do contemporary writers play against the classics (such as Chandler or Hammett for crime)? How do you write a piece that fits in a genre and yet avoids cliché? How much can you diverge from the expected in genre fiction? What steps can be taken to build a complex world for your piece? Is plotting for genre fiction different than plotting for literary fiction? Authors studied may include Jonathan Letham, Raymond Chandler, Robin McKinley, Megan Abbott, Charlaine Harris or China Miéville.
Writing for the screen	15 Credits	Compulsory
Writing for screen is an intensive 12 week course designed to introduce students to drama at level 4. Students will be introduced to all the elements of dramatic writing - dramatic action, narrative, structure, plotting and writing perfect scene hooks. Students will work practically in class, receiving weekly feedback on their work and developing their script to completion. Students will be able to edit and develop their final film towards completion as they workshop their scripts in the final 4 weeks of the module. Students will develop the skill of analysing the theory of screen writing and study short films, breaking them down for structure, narrative and plot. Students will learn how to understand their own practical method and be able to reflect upon their creative decision making. They will study craft texts and develop their skills in critical analysis. All students will complete the course having written a 10 minute short film displaying an understanding of all of the elements of dramatic writing.
Texts Up Close: Reading and Interpretation	15 Credits	Compulsory
This core module aims to encourage and develop your enjoyment of the processes and practices of reading literary texts. It is also intended that the module help you transition from secondary education to university study and equip you with a strong foundation in some important skills needed throughout your university career: close textual analysis, independent learning, critical thinking, and advanced academic writing. The module aims to encourage you to think about literary genres and styles, as well as a range of approaches to literary criticism. We will focus on a small number of primary texts written at different times, as well as a selection of literary criticism. Typical examples include: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (a novel, 1818); Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (a play, 1953) and an anthology, Identity Parade: New British and Irish Poets (2010). `Texts Up Close’ will also complement your work on other modules in the first year, and prepare you for the next steps in your degree.
Make it New: Literary Tradition and Experimentation	15 Credits	Compulsory
This module builds on your work in the first semester and focuses on the ways in which, in the Twenty-first century, literary texts continue to undergo transformation. In studying examples from the three main genres—prose (novels), poetry, and drama—you will examine how texts either conform to, or break away from, literary conventions and traditions. The module emphasises recent material to give you a sense of the writing around us now, but we will also look at some older ‘classic’ texts. We will seek to question how the ingredients of different genres—character, plot, and narration in the novel; dialogue and structure in drama; language, metre and rhyme in poetry, for example—are re-examined and questioned over time. Typical texts include Ali Smith, How to be both (2014), Zadie Smith, NW (2010), Daljit Nagra, Look We Have Coming to Dover! (2007); Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (1952) and Emily Berry, Stranger Baby (2017).
Journeys and Quests: Adventures in Literature	15 Credits	Compulsory
In this module, we start to examine one of the major plots in literary history: the journey or quest. From ancient Greek poems about mythic heroes, to the search for the Holy Grail, and recent stories about returning home, the quest narrative has been central to literary texts across time-periods and cultures. This module is interested in the narrative traditions, conventions and motifs of the quest, and we will pay close attention to literary form and content. We will also think how certain narratives are recycled and re-used by writers and film-makers. We will move from ancient texts such as Homer’s epic The Odyssey to more contemporary re-writings of this story, such as Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad (2005). Other texts for study might include the autobiography The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave (1831), Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road (2006) and The Wizard of Oz (film; 1939).
Identity and Contemporary Writing	15 Credits	Compulsory
This creative and critical module explores a range of contemporary poetry and prose about identity. Broadly, the module examines material written in the late-twentieth and twenty-first-century about identity positions, from race and gender, to sexuality, dis/ability, class and so on. We will consider, both creatively and critically, how one writes about one’s own life, whether marginal or otherwise. You will think about these concerns as both creative writers and literary scholars: you will be analysing poetry and prose as well as writing in these forms on a fortnightly basis. Each critical week, exploring a topic, theme or author, will be followed by a creative week, where you put into practice the things you’ve learned. In all, this module helps develop you as both a writer and a scholar of contemporary literature. Writers studied may include: Emily Berry, Danez Smith, Justin Torres, Mary Jean Chan, Andrew McMillan, Claudia Rankine, and others.
Leisure and Lifestyle: 20th Century American Music, Sport and Entertainment	15 Credits	Compulsory
The influence of the American lifestyle extends far beyond the country’s borders, and this module encourages you to reflect on the historical roots of often-familiar elements of American culture. By focussing on selected moments in twentieth century American music, sport and entertainment, we will consider the historical processes that shaped the continent’s social and cultural history. Building on this, we will also examine how and why the country’s cultural identity has been internationally transmitted and how it has been received. Each week you will learn to connect a specific individual, event or movement to broader historical issues through the use of video, texts, images, and song.

Level 5

Module	Credits	Compulsory/optional
Graduate Skills	0 Credits	Compulsory
You will be offered a variety of employment enhancing workshops and online activities such as interview skills workshops, personality profiling and career planning in order to improve your employment prospects after graduation and make you aware of current areas of strength and weakness in relation to employability. You will also have the opportunity to learn about self-employment options, graduate schemes and will attend speaker sessions with successful professionals in areas of employment appropriate for Humanities graduates so you can learn about the skills and attributes required for these areas and how to enhance your prospects of entering such areas. You will be required to undertake a certain number of activities chosen by you from a career “menu” and to reflect on what they have learnt in order to complete the module successfully.
Writing for the Stage	15 Credits	Compulsory
Building on critical and practical skills developed at Level Four, this module continues the study of genre but also investigates writing as a collaborative process. Focusing on stage drama, we will analyse a selection of twentieth century and contemporary works. Theme-based workshops will explore character, dialogue, the world of the play, action, plot, narrative, and audience. We explore how the playwright evokes the 'World of the Play' through creation of the imaginary place, aspects of setting, music and props. Students will be expected to work collaboratively to workshop their own dramatic writing with a view to completing a short dramatic text and the final sessions will be spent in revising and preparing work for the final assessment.
Language and Imagination: The Art of the Poem	15 Credits	Compulsory
Building on previous work, this module will develop your knowledge and understanding of poetic craft and technique including voice, sound, patterns and shape, rhyme and rhythm, imagery and metaphor. You will develop your own creative writing through the use of exercises and create your own portfolio of poetry. You will be asked to practise reading and thinking about poems of many different styles and periods, for example, sonnets, villanelles and free verse. You will consider ways in which the material presentation of poetry is significant. For example, you might examine poetry that exists somewhere other than a printed page: written on a wall, as a film, as a performance, etc.
Poetry, Prose and Publishing	15 Credits	Compulsory
This module will introduce you to the world of literary magazine and anthology publishing, considering both print and online publications. In groups, you will work towards planning your own publications and developing your editorial skills. Key questions of craft and motivation will be asked: what are the attributes of a successful publication? What useful selection criteria might an editor employ? Publications studied might include Poetry Magazine, Granta, Ambit and the Paris Review. You will also spend around half the course producing and workshopping your own creative work (prose or poetry), and learning to identify suitable outlets for publication.
The Short Story Workshop	15 Credits	Compulsory
‘For sale, baby shoes, never worn.' (very short story attributed to Ernest Hemingway). From flash-fiction to weird fiction, and from historical fiction to dirty realism, this module will deepen and expand the critical and creative study of the short story begun at Level 4. Key questions of craft and motivation will be asked: How does the content of a story relate to its form? What makes a successful anti-hero or -heroine? How do you build suspense? When does a short story become a flash fiction? We will read some of the best short stories from the UK, the US and around the world, and you will develop your own creative writing by working towards a portfolio of short fiction. Authors studied may include Lydia Davis, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chris Adrian, Sarah Hall, James Baldwin, Stephen King, Raymond Carver, Katherine Mansfield, Miranda July, Angela Carter, Jhumpa Lahiri and William Trevor.
Studies in Twentieth Century Literature, 1900-1945	15 Credits	Optional
Building on the study of narrative begun at Level One this course will examine some key texts published in the period 1900 - 1945 and offer an historical and theoretical framework in which the set texts can be read. A central part of the course will be the attempt to explain the literary developments of the period by reference to a central concept in twentieth century cultural history: Modernism. The course will make clear that the chronological division indicated here does not imply that all texts of this period can be called `Modernist'. As students will be invited to consider, this is simply a convenient label whose meaning is itself a source of controversy and debate. Attention will also be given to such common thematic motifs such as urban ambience, the 'presence of the past', social class and sexual politics. The writers studied on the course will vary from year to year but are likely to include such key figures as Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, May Sinclair, Jean Rhys, James Joyce and T.S. Eliot.
Ways of Reading: Literature and Theory	15 Credits	Optional
Ways of Reading is an introduction to literary critical approaches which call into question apparently common sense interpretative concepts such as 'intention', the 'author' and 'character'. The module will offer a survey of twentieth-century trends in critical thinking about literature, including Marxism, psychoanalysis and feminism, together with later developments such as deconstruction and Postmodernism. The emphasis will be on learning to apply concepts which are characteristic of these approaches within the context of your own critical writing about literature. This module is compulsory for students intending to take an independent project module or dissertation in Literature at Level 6.
Literature at Work	15 Credits	Optional
This module enables you to incorporate practical experience into your study of English Literature and/or Creative Writing. It focuses on how literature (the writing process, the marketing and retailing of texts, their critical analysis, or literary history) is encountered by an audience outside academia. To take this module, you must find a suitable work placement by the end of the previous semester, with guidance from the module leader. Suitable sites for work experience might include: a school, or further education college; a heritage site associated with a writer; a literary festival; a publishing company; a bookshop; a funding body or arts organisation; a theatre. Your time spent on placement should total up to at least 24 accumulated hours, though in practice you may spend longer. In seminars, you will reflect on your experiences, explore related conceptual issues and develop a broader appreciation of how literature is engaged with outside higher education. The module will be assessed by a presentation and portfolio of materials including the development of a new curriculum vitae.
Making a Historical Documentary	15 Credits	Optional
Historical documentaries are one of the key ways that the public learn about the past. The most successful documentaries take complex issues and communicate them in a straightforward and engaging manner. This practical module will guide you through the various stages of television documentary-making, from generating an idea to actually producing your own short twelve-minute documentary. Archive research, scripting, filming and interviewing, and editing are among the basic techniques that will be covered. You will also develop the ability to critically assess documentaries, learning to detect strengths and weaknesses. Over the course of the semester, you will gain and expand a range of practical transferable skills.
Employability Skills	15 Credits	Optional
Producing graduates who are highly employable is a key aim of the University of Hertfordshire. This module aims to help you bridge gaps between your specialist academic studies and the world of graduate employment. As well as allowing you to reflect on and further develop your employability skills we will explore the changing nature of employers’ needs. Using case studies, we will consider a range of issues (legal, gender, equality) that can arise in recruitment and the workplace. The module will also focus on career planning and job searching, as well as recruitment and selection processes including the work of assessment centres and pyschometric testing. Overall the intention is that you will be able to develop your job-market awareness and identify and explore potential career pathways. The module is worth 15 credits and may be chosen in place of a 15-credit subject module at Level 5, or as an additional module at Level 6, alongside 120 credits of modules in your subject(s).

Level 6

Module	Credits	Compulsory/optional
Tell It Slant: Writing and Reality	15 Credits	Compulsory
Emily Dickinson wrote ‘Tell all the truth, but tell it slant’. This module examines many aspects of writing from reality – the methods and reasons for doing so, the ethics involved, and whether or not it forms a ‘fourth genre’ of writing as has been posited by theorists such as Robert Root and Lee Gutkind. Degrees of ‘truth’ will be questioned: how much fiction can or should be introduced? Where does one draw the line between fiction and reality? Who has the right to draw this line? Does writing about a community, or writing with a community, alter the obligations of the writer? Authors studied may include James Frey, David Sedaris, Louisa May Alcott, Geraldine Brooks, Sei Shonagan, James Baldwin, Megan Abbott and Robin Soans.
Year Abroad	0 Credits	Compulsory
A Study Abroad year is an optional additional year that increases the length of the Honours degree award to a four-year full-time degree. The additional year comprises an agreed programme of study in a partner institution abroad with whom the University of Hertfordshire has an institutional agreement. The programme of study will support, supplement and extend the more usual three-year programme. Success in the third year will be recognised in the title of the award, but does not carry additional credit towards the Honours programme. A student would normally confirm the intention to study abroad during the first ten weeks of study at Level 5. This will enable a place to be negotiated at a host institution and the Study Programme and learning contract to be arranged and agreed.
Graduate Skills	0 Credits	Compulsory
You will be able to access employability and enterprise resources including workshops, online materials and books in order to help you formulate a career or post-graduate study plan. You will have the opportunity to hear speakers from a variety of areas give advice and guidance as to how to enter those fields. You will be required to undertake a certain number of activities chosen by you from a career "menu" and to reflect on what they have learnt in order to complete the module successfully.
The Humanities Placement Year	0 Credits	Compulsory
The Placement Year provides you with the opportunity to set your academic studies in a broader context and to utilise the intellectual skills you have gained through your degree in the work place. You will also strengthen your time management, organisational and communication skills as well as develop employability skills. You will gain experience of applying for jobs and of working within a commercial, business or professional environment prior to graduating thus increasing employability skills such as teamwork, communication skills and commercial awareness. You will gain experience in a field that is often a destination for Humanities students such as PR, marketing, management and research. You will have developed valuable industry skills and experience as well as being able to apply many of the intellectual skills you have learnt through your degree to a real world situation.
Placement with Study Abroad	0 Credits	Compulsory
Students on this unique module will have the opportunity to undertake both a semester at a partner university and to undertake a semester of placement, thus both improving their cultural awareness and employability. Students who have been on the Placement Year and Study Abroad Year, both normally undertaken after level 5 and before entering the final year, have reported high levels of satisfaction with both and many have said the Placement or Study Abroad year was one of the highlights of their university career. The Placement Year is offered by only a handful of universities offering Humanities subjects, so this module is a fantastic opportunity for students to explore both aspects of Study Abroad and Placement both here and abroad.
Writing Serial Drama	15 Credits	Compulsory
This is an intensive 12 week module created to enable you to create and write your own pitch and pilot episode for a serial drama. You will learn the craft skills required to create compelling serial drama or comedy and create a pitch document suitable to send to production companies. You will watch episodes and read screenplays from current successful serials, analysing the technique required to create a successful drama series. You will workshop your ideas and pilot scripts under the guidance your module leader. You may write anything from a Netflix serial, continuing BBC Drama or online comedy series for your final submission.
Writing for Popular Fiction Markets	15 Credits	Compulsory
The module will explore a selection of different popular fiction genres (for example romance, historical, crime, fantasy, horror) looking at examples which illustrate the development of their specific market. The examples will be taken from book texts but also film and television in the various genres covered. You will learn how an analysis of the features and narratives used in these can be used to inform writing practice. Practice at writing for popular genres will be central to the module’s syllabus which will practice and consider self and peer review within the delimited markets and genre tropes. Each genre discussed will be given a designated two week block with the block providing a combination of knowledge presentation, practice, reflection and work-shopping. You will be encouraged to contextualise your own work within the popular genres that we consider and gain awareness of its commercial positioning and opportunity. Authors whose work we explore typically may include Agatha Christie, Margaret Atwood, HG Wells, Audrey Niffeneger and Bram Stoker, TV shows may include Dexter, Game of Thrones and Poldark, and Films may include Doctor Zhivago, The Prestige, Blade Runner and Let the Right One In. Please note that all of these titles are indicative and subject to regular updating.
Between the Acts: Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature 1890-1920	15 Credits	Optional
This module studies texts written between 1890 and 1920 in order to consider the period of transition between the end of the Victorian age and the end of the First World War. Students will be invited to consider ways in which the set texts challenge 'Victorian' ideas of stability and respectability as well as their engagement with such concepts as heroism, the `monstrous', suburbia, marriage and sexuality, trauma, class and nationhood. The texts studied will include a range of different genres and styles, from the so-called `problem play' of the 1890s and 1900s, to the horror story; from the best-selling exotic romance to the literature of World War One. Authors studied may include Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, Elizabeth Robbins, E.M. Forster, Ford Madox Ford, Rebecca West, Henry James, Elinor Glyn and Rudyard Kipling.
Texts and Screens: Studies in Literary Adaptation	15 Credits	Optional
Literature and film have had a close and complex relationship since the beginning of the twentieth century when silent cinema adopted the novel as a fruitful source for its own stories. The cinema is still one of the most frequent ways by which we first encounter literary texts. By using a number of case studies this module aims to introduce you to some of the key issues involved in adapting literary texts for the cinema, including questions of narrative technique, concepts of genre, questions of representation and notions of 'fidelity' and 'authorship'. As well as close readings of the set texts (both written and cinematic) the module will also engage with recent theoretical approaches to film and literary studies. The texts chosen for study will vary from year to year but might include such notable examples as Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare; Zeffirelli; Lurhmann); Goldfinger (Flemming/Hamilton) and Trainspotting (Welsh/Boyle).
African-American Literature	15 Credits	Optional
This module will introduce you to some key works of African-American literature, from the late nineteenth century to the present day. You will study a range of genres, such as fiction, poetry, drama, autobiography, and nonfiction. We will trace how a unique African-American literary voice relates to a number of important modes of expression: oral culture, ‘signifying’, folklore, the visual arts, and music (such as spirituals, blues, jazz, work songs, gospel, and hip hop). We will identify several key themes and preoccupations in the work of African-American writers: freedom, identity, mobility (both geographical and social), and self-expression, amongst others. These will be mapped against historical events and developments, including slavery and abolition, segregation and the Jim Crow laws, the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights movement, the feminist movement, and the election of Barack Obama as President. We will also explore how issues of gender, sexuality, and class specifically inform these works.
Generation Dead: Young Adult Fiction and the Gothic	15 Credits	Optional
All over the country in the world of young adult fiction teenagers who die aren’t staying dead. This module will interrogate the new high school gothic, exploring the representation of the undead or living dead (werewolves, vampires and zombies) in dark or paranormal romance. Texts range from Twilight, Vampire Diaries and Daniel Waters’s zombie trilogy to Isaac Marion’s Warm Bodies and Eden Maguire’s The Beautiful Dead. We’ll also look at examples of werewolf fiction (Shiver) and at the folklore inspired novels of Marcus Sedgwick. Y.A.F. has attracted some of the most gifted writers who address these themes as a means of confronting death or discrimination or to engage with Christianity or Mormonism and embrace the enduring power of love. We will be theorising folklore, investigating the ethics of writing for young adults, and grappling with undead issues such as the notion of free will, damnation and redemption, the sexualisation of early teens, the effects of prejudice and the politics of difference.
Everyday Lives: an Intimate History of Twentieth Century Women A	15 Credits	Optional
This module offers an intimate history of the everyday lives of women in America, Britain and Ireland. Through lectures and a series of case studies in seminars, the lives, roles, experiences and perceptions of ordinary women during the twentieth century will be explored. Students will be introduced to an array of sources – including popular and visual culture, oral testimony and literature (fiction and memoir) – and to what they reveal about the manner in which women were perceived and represented; how women viewed themselves; and how women of different generations experienced, negotiated and reacted to social change. Fashion, consumerism, courtship, sexuality, and advertising are among the areas considered for what they reveal about women and the world around them. Such themes will be analysed within the context of continuity and change across the twentieth century and three geographical perspectives. The module will conclude by questioning the extent to which women’s movements were representative of ordinary women.
Euro-Crime on Page and Screen	15 Credits	Optional
The twenty-first century has seen a resurgence of interest in crime fiction, films and television dramas ranging from renewed interest in the “who-dunnits” of Agatha Christie to the more explicit violence of contemporary “Nordic Noir”. This module examines examples of European crime writing beginning with the popularity of detective fiction in the early 1900s before looking at how successive European writers and film/programme makers have modified the form to suit their times, often using the crime at the centre of their narratives as a jumping off point for exploring questions of national and cultural identities. The written and filmed texts studied will take us to different European countries. Typical examples include, but are not limited to, stories from Britain’s “Golden Age” (1920s and 1930s), novels and film adaptations of work by Georges Simenon (Inspector Maigret, France), Arnaldur Indriðason (Detective Erlendur, Iceland), Stieg Larsson (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Sweden), and Andrea Camilleri and Giancarlo de Cataldo (Inspector Montalbano and Romanze Criminale, Italy). Works will be read in translation.
Creative Writing Project Poetry	30 Credits	Optional
The Creative Writing Project module is the culmination of your three years of study of the subject. Over two semesters, you will meet in fortnightly intensive three hour workshops to develop and hone your writing. The workshops will, where possible, be genre specific and all workshops will be led by professional writers. Workshops will also cover how to work as a writer professionally, including how to submit your work to competitions, agents, publishers, producers, etc. You will devise, plan and produce an extended piece of creative writing in a genre of particular personal interest. You will finish the module having a substantial piece of writing you can either submit professionally or continue working on after graduation. The module is also an excellent preparation for pursuing an MA in Creative Writing.
Creative Writing Project Prose	30 Credits	Optional
The Creative Writing Project module is the culmination of your three years of study of the subject. Over two semesters, you will meet in fortnightly intensive three hour workshops to develop and hone your writing. The workshops will, where possible, be genre specific and all workshops will be led by professional writers. Workshops will also cover how to work as a writer professionally, including how to submit your work to competitions, agents, publishers, producers, etc. You will devise, plan and produce an extended piece of creative writing in a genre of particular personal interest. You will finish the module having a substantial piece of writing you can either submit professionally or continue working on after graduation. The module is also an excellent preparation for pursuing an MA in Creative Writing.
Creative Writing Project Script	30 Credits	Optional
The Creative Writing Project module is the culmination of your three years of study of the subject. Over two semesters, you will meet in fortnightly intensive three hour workshops to develop and hone your writing. The workshops will, where possible, be genre specific and all workshops will be led by professional writers. Workshops will also cover how to work as a writer professionally, including how to submit your work to competitions, agents, publishers, producers, etc. You will devise, plan and produce an extended piece of creative writing in a genre of particular personal interest. You will finish the module having a substantial piece of writing you can either submit professionally or continue working on after graduation. The module is also an excellent preparation for pursuing an MA in Creative Writing.

Study abroad

An opportunity for an amazing experience, which will help make you stand out from the crowd. With more and more companies working internationally, experience of living in another country can make a great impression on future employers.

This course offers you the opportunity to enhance your study and CV with a sandwich year abroad. The University has partnerships with over 150 universities around the world, including the USA, Canada, Asia, Africa, Australia, South America and closer to home in Europe.

If you study abroad between your second and third year of study, you’ll pay no tuition fee to the partner university and no tuition fee to us either. We’ll ask you to make your decision in your second year, so there is plenty of time to think about it.

Find out more about Study abroad opportunities

Please note Erasmus+ funding is only available until May 2023. For students starting their course in September 2022 and wishing to study abroad in 2023-24 or 2024-25, please refer to the Turing Scheme.
Work placement

Graduate with invaluable work experience alongside your degree and stand out from the crowd.

This course offers you the opportunity to enhance your study and CV with a work placement sandwich year. It’s a chance to explore career possibilities, make valuable contacts and gain sought after professional skills.

Our dedicated Careers and Employment team are here to help guide you through the process.

If you take up a work placement between your second and third year of study, at the University of Hertfordshire you’ll pay no tuition fee for this year. We’ll ask you to make your decision in your second year, so there is plenty of time to think about it.

Find out more about work placements

Alumni Stories

Eleanor Pilcher

Meet Eleanor Pilcher who since graduating in 2016 has taken the publishing industry by storm. Eleanor currently works as a Marketing Manager at Avon, HarperCollins Publisher.

Read more stories Find out more about this course

Current job role	Marketing Manager
Year of graduation	2016
Course of study	BA (Hons) History and Creative Writing

Ellie Pilcher

University experience and employability

Eleanor is a keen writer with great creative ambitions. During her degree she undertook a six-month internship at a literary agency in her final academic year. In 2016, shortly after her studies, Eleanor landed a placement at Penguin before getting a job in publishing recruitment. After developing her skills within the industry and amassing and impressive amount of knowledge and experience, Eleanor began her current role at HarperCollins Publishers.

Eleanor's degree encompassed a broad spectrum of critical, analytical and evaluative skills and helped shape her as a writer. Throughout her studies she had been writing a novel, which she submitted to literary agencies after being encouraged by her tutor to do so. It was Eleanor's passion for writing that uncovered her interest in working for a literary agency. Due to the fantastic lecturers on her course and the invaluable industry networks available to students, Eleanor managed to secure impressive opportunities in her chosen industry that have informed her career.

Sher recognises the impact the University has had on getting her to where she is today. 'For me the advice and feedback I received on both my History essays and Creative Writing finals was incredibly useful to my academic and professional development. I learnt to take criticism and to harness it and also write more because of it.'

Ambitions for the future

Eleanor has established herself in her chosen industry yet still has ambition to continue pursuing new goals. On her hopes for the future, she says: 'I hope to run a marketing department within a publishing company, possibly the one I'm at now. I hope to publish a novel and continue my freelance writing and public speaking on the side.'

For me the advice and feedback I received on both my History essays and Creative Writing finals was incredibly useful to my academic and professional development. I learnt to take criticism and to harness it and also write more because of it.

What's next for my career?

You will have the opportunity to gain the professional, intellectual and creative skills necessary to establish yourself as an author or for a career in a related communications field or for postgraduate study. Career development is supported through the Poetry, Prose and Publishing Module in your second year taught by a former editor of Granta, the renowned magazine of new writing, who will teach you the practicalities of getting published or working in literary publishing.

Specialist modules in Year 2 and Year 3 also look at the skills required and the opportunities afforded in the areas of commercial fiction, non-fiction and drama.
View our Alumni profiles

Eleanor Pilcher

Course fact sheets
BA (Hons) Creative Writing	Download

Programme specifications
BA (Hons) Creative Writing	Download

Additional information
Sandwich placement or study abroad year	n/a
Applications open to international and EU students	Yes

International/EU applicants without pre-settled status in the UK

Apply through our international/EU application portal

Home and EU applicants with pre-settled/settled status in the UK

Apply using the links below:

2021

Start Date	End Date	Link
23/09/2021	31/05/2022	Apply online (Full Time)
23/09/2021	31/05/2022	Apply online (Part Time)
23/09/2021	31/05/2022	Apply online (Full Time/Sandwich)
23/09/2021	31/05/2022	Apply online (Full Time/Sandwich)

2022

Start Date	End Date	Link
23/09/2022	31/05/2023	Apply online (Full Time)
23/09/2022	31/05/2023	Apply online (Part Time)
23/09/2022	31/05/2023	Apply online (Full Time/Sandwich)
23/09/2022	31/05/2023	Apply online (Full Time/Sandwich)

2023

Start Date	End Date	Link
23/09/2023	31/05/2024	Apply online (Full Time)
23/09/2023	31/05/2024	Apply online (Part Time)
23/09/2023	31/05/2024	Apply online (Full Time/Sandwich)
23/09/2023	31/05/2024	Apply online (Full Time/Sandwich)

Fees and funding
Fees 2021
UK Students

Full time
- £9250 for the 2021/2022 academic year
Part time
- £1155 per 15 credits for the 2021/2022 academic year
EU Students

Full time
- £13450 for the 2021/2022 academic year
Part time
- £1680 per 15 credits for the 2021/2022 academic year
International Students

Full time
- £13450 for the 2021/2022 academic year
Part time
- £1680 per 15 credits for the 2021/2022 academic year
*Tuition fees are charged annually. The fees quoted above are for the specified year(s) only. Fees may be higher in future years, for both new and continuing students. Please see the University’s Fees and Finance Policy (and in particular the section headed “When tuition fees change”), for further information about when and by how much the University may increase its fees for future years.

View detailed information about tuition fees

Read more about additional fees in the course fact sheet

Other financial support

Find out more about other financial support available to UK and EU students

Living costs / accommodation

The University of Hertfordshire offers a great choice of student accommodation, on campus or nearby in the local area, to suit every student budget.

View detailed information about our accommodation

Due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, examinations may be replaced by an alternative form of assessment during the academic year 2020/2021. Please refer to the Programme Specification on these pages for further details.

Please note that some of the images and videos on our course pages may have been taken before social distancing rules in the UK came into force.

BA (Hons) Creative Writing

This course includes the options of:

Work placement*

Study abroad*

Additional requirements

Additional requirements

Why choose this course?

What's the course about?

Your main campus is de Havilland

What will I study?

Alumni Stories

Meet Eleanor Pilcher who since graduating in 2016 has taken the publishing industry by storm. Eleanor currently works as a Marketing Manager at Avon, HarperCollins Publisher.

University experience and employability

Ambitions for the future

International/EU applicants without pre-settled status in the UK

Home and EU applicants with pre-settled/settled status in the UK

2021

2022

2023

Fees 2021

UK Students

Full time

Part time

EU Students

Full time

Part time

International Students

Full time

Part time

Other financial support

Living costs / accommodation