Creative Writing Research

Creative Writing is taught at the University of Hertfordshire as a part of the Department of Humanities undergraduate and postgraduate research programmes. We have a lively cohort of PhD and Masters Students.

What we do

• publish creative work in prose, poetry and drama
• combine creative writing practice with teaching
• engage with community projects
• explore the practical and interdisciplinary applications of Creative Writing
• combine heritage and creative applications in outreach projects, working with local museums and schools.

Our staff

• Poetry lecturer Dr Wayne Holloway-Smith, winner of the Poetry Society’s Geoffrey Dearmer Prize and Seamus Heaney Prize nominee.
• 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 and their work has been performed, in original and translated versions, in Canada, Europe and the United States.
• Novelist and creative non-fiction writer, Helen Gordon, a former editor at the renowned, world-famous publisher Granta, with two acclaimed books and numerous short publications.

We welcome inquiries from potential research students wishing to work broadly in the following areas.:

• Helen Gordon (geology and the natural world; twentieth and twenty-first century fiction)
• Dr Wayne Holloway-Smith (contemporary poetics of masculinity, Poetry)
• Simon Vinnicombe (contemporary drama and play writing, screen writing, drama adaptation)
• Drew Pautz (contemporary screen writing)