creative-writing

Creative Writing BA (Hons)

Our innovative course will challenge you to write using new forms and ideas in a range of genres, while being pushed to experiment with new creative outlets.

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Block teaching designed around you

You deserve a positive teaching and learning experience, where you feel part of a supportive and nurturing community. That’s why most students will enjoy an innovative approach to learning using block teaching, where you will study one module at a time. You’ll benefit from regular assessments - rather than lots of exams at the end of the year - and a simple timetable that allows you to engage with your subject and enjoy other aspects of university life such as sports, societies, meeting friends and discovering your new city. By studying with the same peers and tutor for each block, you’ll build friendships and a sense of belonging.

Read more about block teaching

Overview

We welcome students who are enthusiastic about their creative writing, committed to developing existing strengths and excited about cultivating new ones. You will learn from successful published writers and join a creative and passionate community of writers.

Our programme is practice-based: students learn by doing. Workshops involve collaborative learning, giving and receiving feedback, drafting, revision and critical reflection. Industry-focused skills are embedded throughout the curriculum. We support our students to become confident writers with the tools to professionally promote, present and publish their work.

Our innovative thematic course structure keeps you working across different forms and styles throughout the programme – and giving you plenty of choice to focus on what you want to develop for assessment. Uniquely, alongside these themed modules, each year offers the opportunity to choose your own long project. What about that crime screenplay you’ve dreamt of writing? Or that Fantasy novel that’s kept you awake at night?

Key features

  • You can select a route through this degree in Drama, Education, English Language, English Literature, Film, History, Journalism or Media.
  • You’ll learn from successful published writers and become part of a creative and passionate community of writers.
  • You’ll join a programme that is uniquely organised by theme and supports you to develop your skills in a wide range of writing practices, for example, fiction, poetry, memoir, screenwriting, and digital writing.
  • We’ll encourage you to join regional writing networks, participate in spoken word events, and perform and publish your work through book fairs and festivals, including DMU's annual States of Independence book festival.
  • You’ll work beyond classroom boundaries in a variety of stimulating settings to promote creativity, including Leicester Gallery at DMU, local museums and landmarks, DMU’s Special Collections archive and ghost story workshops in a deconsecrated chapel.
  • Benefit from Education 2030, where a simplified ‘block learning’ timetable means you will study one subject at a time and have more time to engage with your learning, receive faster feedback and enjoy a better study-life balance.

 


  • UK
  • EU/International

Institution code: D26

UCAS course code: W800 

Duration: Three years full-time, four years full-time with a placement. Six years part-time.

Fees and funding: 

2024/25 tuition fees for UK students: £9,250

Find out more about tuition fees and available funding.

Additional costs: Here at DMU we provide excellent learning resources, including the Kimberlin Library and specialist workshops and studios. However, you should be aware that sometimes you may incur additional costs for this programme.

Contact us: For more information, call us on +44 (0)116 2 50 60 70.

Duration: Three years full-time, four years with placement

Fees and funding: 

2024/25 tuition fees for international students: £15,750

Additional costs: Here at DMU we provide excellent learning resources, including the Kimberlin Library and specialist workshops and studios. However, you should be aware that sometimes you may incur additional costs for this programme.

Contact us: For more information, call us on +44 (0)116 2 50 60 70.

Entry criteria

  • 104 points from at least 2 A'levels
  • BTEC Extended Diploma DMM
  • International Baccalaureate: 24+ Points or
  • T Levels Merit

Plus five GCSEs grades 9-4 including English Language or Literature at grade 4 or above.

  • Pass Access with 30 Level 3 credits at Merit (or equivalent) and GCSE  English (Language or Literature) at grade 4 or above.

We will normally require students have had a break from full-time education before undertaking the Access course.

  • We also accept the BTEC First Diploma plus two GCSEs including English Language or Literature at grade 4 or above

Note: Applicants with non-standard qualifications may be asked to complete a piece of work to support their application.

Interview required: No

English language requirements

If English is not your first language an IELTS score of 6.0 overall with 5.5 in each band (or equivalent) when you start the course is essential.

English language tuition, delivered by our British Council-accredited Centre for English Language Learning, is available both before and throughout the course if you need it.

Structure and assessment

 

Course modules

Teaching and assessments

 

First year

  • Block 1: Exploring Creative Writing
  • Block 2: Writing Identity
  • Block 3: Writers Salon OR you can select to study one route from the list below:
    • Drama route – Shifting Stages
    • English Language route  - Evolving Language
    • English Literature route – Introduction to Drama: Shakespeare
    • Film Studies route – Disney, Warner Bros and the Business of the Film Studio
    • Education route – Childhood, Social Justice and Education
    • History route – Global Cities
    • Journalism route – Understanding Journalism
    • Media route - Media, Culture and Society
  • Block 4: Shaping Ideas

Second year

 

  • Block 1: Writing Place
  • Block 2: Word, Image, Sound
  • Block 3: Story Craft OR continue with the route selected in the first year:
    • Drama route – Theatre Revolutions
    • English Language route  - Sociolinguistics
    • English Literature route – Text Technologies
    • Film Studies route – Screen Archives - Preservation, Conservation and Usage
    • Education route – Preparing for Professional Practice and Cultural and Educational                       Transformations
    • History route – Humans and the Natural World
    • Journalism route – Beyond News: Peace Journalism and Opinion Writing 
    • Media route – Public Relations and Strategic Communication
  • Year Long: Personal Projects

Third year

 

  • Block 1: Genre Specialism
  • Block 2: Writing and Publishing
  • Block 3: Uncreative Writing, Creative Misbehavior OR continue with the route selected in the first year:
    • Drama route – Performance, Identity and Activism
    • English Language route  - Language and Identity
    • English Literature route – World Englishes: On the Page and Beyond
    • Film Studies route – British Cinema - Creativity, Independents and Interdependence
    • Education route – Adult Learners and Lifelong Learning OR Reflection on Practice: Teaching and Learning OR Gender and Education
    • History route – The World on Display
    • Journalism route – Music, Film and Entertainment Journalism
    • Media route – Gender and TV Fictions
  • Year Long: Dissertation

 

See detailed module information


Routes: You can select to study a route in Block 3 during your first year. When selecting a module for Block 3 in your second year you can opt to remain on your chosen route or return to Creative Writing. If you choose to remain with the route, it must be continued in your third year.

Note: All modules are indicative and based on the current academic session. Course information is correct at the time of publication and is subject to review. Exact modules may, therefore, vary for your intake in order to keep content current. If there are changes to your course we will, where reasonable, take steps to inform you as appropriate.

 

Overview

This degree programme is carefully designed to develop your potential by ensuring you encounter the full range of forms open to the 21st century creative writer, whilst also allowing you flexibility to focus, for assignments, on projects and genres that interest you most. We want you to learn that practicing a particular kind of writing can hone your craft in a different form.

In the first year, the focus is upon shorter work, and the importance of developing your editing and re-drafting skills; and your capacity to accept and evaluate feedback from others.  This process will enable you to take a critical and reflective approach to your work (Both creative and reflective writing will be assessed). But you will also practice shaping and developing your own ideas, and practice reading as a writer to learn new craft skills.

As you progress through your studies the assignments lengthen, and the focus upon research intensifies as you are expected to situate your own writing alongside your reading of other writers in your field. This involves developing a more sustained writing practice informed by an understanding of the conventions of particular genres, and your management of readers’ expectations. You will also consider how your sense of the ways in which creative work is published and marketed will help you understand how your own practice might fit in – or resist – contemporary conventions.

In all years, the modules reinforce the knowledge that reading and analysing the work of other practitioners – your fellow students included - will help you understand and develop your own formal and technical abilities. 

You will experience a range of assessment modes alongside creative writing pieces in the core genres, for example, creative CVs, publications projects, case studies, field trips, and hypertext and audio-visual work. The bulk of the assessment is centred on creative writing coursework and critical reflection – you will take a reflective, critical, and analytical approach to their work and to learn to read as practitioners. You will gain insight into your own creative methods by situating your work in relation to other writers, research materials, and critical writings.

Contact hours

You will be taught through a combination of workshops, lectures, tutorials, group work and self-directed study. In your first year you will normally attend around 10 hours of timetabled taught sessions (lectures and workshops) each week, and we expect you to undertake at least 28 further hours of independent study to complete project work and research.

 

Facilities and features

Library and learning zones

On campus, the main Kimberlin Library offers a space where you can work, study and access a vast range of print materials, with computer stations, laptops, plasma screens and assistive technology also available. 

As well as providing a physical space in which to work, we offer online tools to support your studies, and our extensive online collection of resources accessible from our Library website, e-books, specialised databases and electronic journals and films which can be remotely accessed from anywhere you choose. 

We will support you to confidently use a huge range of learning technologies, including the Virtual Learning Environment, Collaborate Ultra, DMU Replay, MS Teams, Turnitin and more. Alongside this, you can access LinkedIn Learning and learn how to use Microsoft 365, and study support software such as mind mapping and note-taking through our new Digital Student Skills Hub. 

The library staff offer additional support to students, including help with academic writing, research strategies, literature searching, reference management and assistive technology. There is also a ‘Just Ask’ service for help and advice, live LibChat, online workshops, tutorials and drop-ins available from our Learning Services, and weekly library live chat sessions that give you the chance to ask the library teams for help.

More flexible ways to learn

Our Universal Design for Learning (UDL) has been recognised as leading the university sector. It builds upon our pledge to offer an equitable and inclusive approach to learning and teaching for all of our students.

UDL means we offer a wide variety of support, facilities and technology to all students, including those with disabilities and specific learning differences. Just one of the ways we do this is by using ‘DMU Replay’ – a technology providing all students with anytime access to audio and/or visual material of lectures. This means students can revise taught material in the way which suits them best, whether it's replaying a recording of a class or adapting written material shared in class using specialist software.

Campus Centre

The home of  De Montfort Students' Union, (DSU) our Campus Centre offers a welcoming and lively hub for student life. Conveniently located at the heart of campus, it includes a convenience store, a Subway and a Starbucks. Here you can find the DSU-owned charitable accommodation service Sulets and DSU’s shop, SUpplies, selling art supplies, stationery and clothing, and printing and binding services. The building is also home to the DSU officer team. 

Opportunities and careers

Find the people who will open doors for you

DMU's award-winning careers service provides guaranteed work experience opportunities DMU Careers Team
Students on the #DMUglobal trip to New York

DMU Global

Our innovative international experience programme DMU Global aims to enrich studies, broaden cultural horizons and develop key skills valued by employers. 

Through DMU Global, we offer an exciting mix of overseas, on-campus and online international experiences, including the opportunity to study or work abroad for up to a year.

Students on this course have considered the theme of borders and exile on a walking tour of Berlin, taken part in a scavenger hunt in the New York Public Library and discovered Danish literature in Copenhagen.

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Placements

This course gives you the option to enhance and build your professional skills to progress within your chosen career, through a placement. Our dedicated team offers a range of careers resources and opportunities so you can start planning your future.

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Graduate careers

The course will equip you with a broad range of transferrable skills for careers within and beyond the creative industries including creative thinking, critical analysis, problem solving, research, independent study, editing, digital writing, publishing and proof reading. We will encourage you to think more widely about employability, and to recognise – and articulate to employers – the rich skills you bring to any workplace.

Our graduates go on to careers in a variety of areas such as writing, teaching, publishing and PR, while others undertake further studies such as the Creative Writing MA at DMU.

Graduate, Konnie Colton, is undertaking her master's at DMU whilst working as an intern at an independent publisher. She said: "The course, the people, the campus everything is brilliant and I have had so much support. I always knew I wanted to do a master’s degree and there was no way I was leaving DMU to study for it anywhere else."

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