birkbeck college london creative writing

• Log in
• Site search

Creative Writing and Contemporary Studies

Entry requirements, months of entry.

January, October

Course content

The MA in Creative Writing and Contemporary Studies is run by experienced and forward-thinking teachers who have been enabling dynamic groups of students to improve their creative work and develop as writers for nearly two decades. They are proud of a growing list of published and prizewinning authors whose work started life in their seminars.

If you have been writing creatively for a while and feel the need for professional support and feedback and the guidance of published authors and a cohort of like-minded people, then this course is for you.

The MA Creative Writing and Contemporary Studies will help you to develop the craft of writing in various genres to a professional level. You will also develop your critical-thinking skills exploring critical methods and debates on experimental literature, media, popular culture, technology and cultural development.

It will give you the opportunity to:

• develop confidence, sensitivity and discernment in analysis of your own and others’ work
• combine both practice-based learning with specialism in contemporary literature, culture and criticism, as well as the development of your own creative writing projects
• place your own writing in the context of developments in contemporary poetry, screenwriting, fiction and creative non-fiction
• cultivate a greater practical knowledge and understanding of the markets for poetry, fiction, screenwriting and non-fiction.
• Birkbeck was ranked 2nd in the UK for its English Language and Literature research in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework.
• In addition to working with the established and award-winning writers who teach the degree, you will have contact with industry professionals, such as publishers and literary agents, who offer a series of platform discussions in the summer term.
• The Mechanics' Institute Review, MIROnline , is a forum for the most exciting new writing in short fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction selected from students on this course and beyond.
• We offer a number of bursaries for postgraduate students .

On successful completion of this MA Creative Writing and Contemporary Studies, you will have developed a set of valuable attributes, including:

• the ability to use language more confidently, precisely and imaginatively
• independent research skills
• the ability to convey your ideas and build an effective argument
• the ability to analyse and process complex ideas.

You will find MA Creative Writing and Contemporary Studies graduates progressing in career paths in:

• performing arts
• advertising
• public relations
• game design
• the civil service and business roles.

We offer a comprehensive careers service - Careers and Enterprise - your career partner during your time at Birkbeck and beyond. At every stage of your career journey, we empower you to take ownership of your future, helping you to make the connection between your experience, education and future ambitions.

Information for international students

If English is not your first language or you have not previously studied in English, the requirement for this course is the equivalent of an International English Language Testing System (IELTS Academic Test) score of 6.5, with not less than 6.0 in each of the sub-tests.

If you don't meet the minimum IELTS requirement, we offer pre-sessional English courses and foundation programmes to help you improve your English language skills and get your place at Birkbeck.

Qualification, course duration and attendance options

• Campus-based learning is available for this qualification

Course contact details

Creative Writing BA (Hons)

Want to know what it's like to study this course at uni? We've got all the key info, from entry requirements to the modules on offer. If that all sounds good, why not check out reviews from real students or even book onto an upcoming open days ?

Different course options

Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)

Select a course option

Select a subject

Select a an exam type

Select student location

Course info

Entry requirements, tuition fees, latest reviews.

The BA Creative Writing is an exciting programme of study that gives you the opportunity to explore a range of disciplines, from fiction to poetry, scriptwriting to creative non-fiction.You will be taught by some of the UK’s leading writers, including playwright David Eldridge (Beginning), screenwriter Daragh Carville (The Bay) and writer and critic Katherine Angel (Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again). Under the guidance of these and other practising, award-winning writers, you will:- build an understanding of the craft of writing- hone your authorial technique- learn the vital skills of reading as a writer.Through practical projects and engagement with visiting professionals, you will broaden your understanding of the many aspects of the writing industry. You will also complete an extended creative project in a specific genre in your final year.This creative writing course provides you with a basis of skills necessary to pursue writing as a profession. It also equips you with expertise transferable to many careers in the arts, education and the media. And you will be studying right in the heart of literary London, walking in the footsteps of Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.If you opt for the Foundation Year route, this will fully prepare you for undergraduate study. It is ideal if you are returning to study after a gap, or if you have not previously studied the relevant subjects, or if you didn't achieve the grades you need for a place on your chosen undergraduate degree.

- Birkbeck was ranked 2nd in the UK for its English Language and Literature research in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework.- You will be eligible to submit work to the annual Birkbeck creative writing journal, The Mechanics’ Institute Review. - Birkbeck is located in the heart of literary London, in Bloomsbury, WC1. You could be studying in a building that was once home to Virginia Woolf and frequented by members of the Bloomsbury Group. The building houses our own creative hub which includes the Peltz Gallery, the Gordon Square Cinema and a theatre and performance space.

Graduates can pursue career paths in creative writing, journalism, education or media production. Possible professions include:- author- journalist- higher education lecturer- screenwriter.We offer a comprehensive careers service - Careers and Enterprise - your career partner during your time at Birkbeck and beyond. At every stage of your career journey, we empower you to take ownership of your future, helping you to make the connection between your experience, education and future ambitions.

Creative Writing

What students say.

Close to home great tutors . Studying at night allows me to work in the day If I choose to do.. Read more

The quality of the modules and teaching have been excellent thus far, and I love being part of a diverse mix of students--so many different backgrounds, ages, etc., and everyone.. Read more

Modules (Year 1)

Modules (year 2), modules (year 3).

CCC - ABB Grades / Points required

UCAS Tariff:

96 - 128 Grades / Points required

Access to HE Diploma:

D:15,M:15 Grades / Points required

Not currently available, please contact university for up to date information.

The UCAS tariff score is applicable to you if you have recently studied a qualification that has a UCAS tariff equivalence. UCAS provides a tariff calculator for you to work out what your qualification is worth within the UCAS tariff.

Access to Higher Education Diploma with a Merit or Distinction in the subject area, although we may waive these formal entry requirements and make our own assessment based on the creative writing sample.

Students living in

£9,250 per year

Students from England

This is the fee you pay if you live within England. Please note, this fee has been confirmed.

Students from Scotland

This is the fee you pay if you live within Scotland. Please note, this fee has been confirmed.

Students from Wales

This is the fee you pay if you live within Wales. Please note, this fee has been confirmed.

Students from Northern Ireland

This is the fee you pay if you live within Northern Ireland. Please note, this fee has been confirmed.

£17,620 per year

Students from International

This is the fee you pay if you are an International student. Please note, this fee has been confirmed.

Latest Creative Writing reviews

Review breakdown, how all students rated:.

Malet Street London Camden WC1E 7HX

Birkbeck, University of London

Thinking of studying in london.

Check out our

Other courses you may like

University of Brighton

Liverpool Hope University

University of Portsmouth

Find a course

• Undergraduate
• Foundation degree
• Access & foundation
• Postgraduate

YOUR UCAS POINTS 0

Please wait

• Follow us on Twitter
• Follow us on Facebook
• Subscribe To Rss Feed
• Follow Us On Google+

Department of English, Theatre & Creative Writing

Birkbeck's Department of English, Theatre & Creative Writing , one of the liveliest and most adventurous English departments in the country, is situated in the School of Arts and housed in Gordon Square. I n the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, 75% of research in the Department was recognised as ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’, with 73% of the research in the College’s reconfigured Modern Languages group ranked in the same top two categories.

Sign up for CCL news

Don't miss out on our latest news, events, and programme!

We don’t spam! Read our data protection policy for more info.

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Hosted by Birkbeck, University of London | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

Our cookies

We use cookies for three reasons: to give you the best experience on PGS, to make sure the PGS ads you see on other sites are relevant , and to measure website usage. Some of these cookies are necessary to help the site work properly and can’t be switched off. Cookies also support us to provide our services for free, and by click on “Accept” below, you are agreeing to our use of cookies .You can manage your preferences now or at any time.

Privacy overview

We use cookies, which are small text files placed on your computer, to allow the site to work for you, improve your user experience, to provide us with information about how our site is used, and to deliver personalised ads which help fund our work and deliver our service to you for free.

The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalised web experience.

You can accept all, or else manage cookies individually. However, blocking some types of cookies may affect your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer.

You can change your cookies preference at any time by visiting our Cookies Notice page. Please remember to clear your browsing data and cookies when you change your cookies preferences. This will remove all cookies previously placed on your browser.

For more detailed information about the cookies we use, or how to clear your browser cookies data see our Cookies Notice

Manage consent preferences

Strictly necessary cookies

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems.

They are essential for you to browse the website and use its features.

You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. We can’t identify you from these cookies.

Functional cookies

These help us personalise our sites for you by remembering your preferences and settings. They may be set by us or by third party providers, whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies, then these services may not function properly.

Performance cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and see where our traffic comes from, so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are popular and see how visitors move around the site. The cookies cannot directly identify any individual users.

If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site and will not be able to improve its performance for you.

Marketing cookies

These cookies may be set through our site by social media services or our advertising partners. Social media cookies enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They can track your browser across other sites and build up a profile of your interests. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to see or use the content sharing tools.

Advertising cookies may be used to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but work by uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will still see ads, but they won’t be tailored to your interests.

Course type

Qualification, university name, postgraduate creative writing courses at birkbeck, university of london.

4 courses available

Customise your search

Select the start date, qualification, and how you want to study

Related subjects:

• Creative Writing
• Communication Studies
• Communications and Media
• Digital Media
• Film Studies
• Film and Television Production
• Media Production
• Photography
• Photography history
• Play Writing
• Screenplay Writing

• Course title (A-Z)
• Course title (Z-A)
• Price: high - low
• Price: low - high

Screenwriting PG Cert

Birkbeck, university of london.

Our postgraduate screenwriting course offers you an integrated programme in the history, theory and practice of screenwriting. It will Read more...

• 1 year Part time evening degree: £3,600 per year (UK)

Creative Writing and Contemporary Studies MA

The MA Creative Writing and Contemporary Studies is run by experienced and forward-thinking teachers who have been enabling dynamic Read more...

• 1 year Full time degree: £10,800 per year (UK)
• 2 years Part time evening degree: £5,400 per year (UK)

Creative Writing MA

The MA Creative Writing at Birkbeck is taught by one of the most diverse and vibrant departments in London. For 17 years we have been Read more...

Screenwriting (MA)

Course type:, qualification:, related subjects:.

• Home »
• Birkbeck, University of London »
• English, Theatre and Creative Writing »
• Creative Writing

find your perfect postgrad program Search our Database of 30,000 Courses

Birkbeck, university of london: creative writing, this course is no longer offered..

Birkbeck, University of London also offers courses in:

• Birkbeck Business School
• Birkbeck Centre for Counselling
• Birkbeck Law School
• School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences
• School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication
• School of Historical Studies
• School of Natural Sciences
• School of Psychological Sciences
• School of Social Sciences

Browse other courses in Literature , Creative writing , Poetry or Publishing , or search our comprehensive database of postgrad programs .

Birkbeck, part of the University of London, offers nearly 300 taught and research postgraduate programmes across arts and humanities, business and economics, law, science and social science. As an evening teaching specialist, Birkbeck offers its taught postgraduate courses between 6-9pm, with some courses available through distance learning. As with undergraduate courses, postgraduates can study full-time or part-time. Home to 44 research and specialist institutes, Birkbeck is the sixth largest provider of taught postgrad courses for UK and EU students - some 44% of its 11,000-plus students are on postgrad programmes. Around 90% of its academics are active in research, and …

Not what you are looking for?

Postgraduate Bursary Opportunity with Postgrad.com

Are you studying as a PG student at the moment or have you recently been accepted on a postgraduate program? Apply now for one of our £2000 PGS bursaries.

Exclusive bursaries Open day alerts Funding advice Application tips Latest PG news

Sign up now!

Take 2 minutes to sign up to PGS student services and reap the benefits…

• The chance to apply for one of our 5 PGS Bursaries worth £2,000 each
• Fantastic scholarship updates
• Latest PG news sent directly to you.

Niki Aguirre

Niki Aguirre has lived and travelled widely in the US, Latin America and Europe. She studied English Literature at the University of Illinois and holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of London. 'The Shed' is taken from her debut collection of short fiction, 29 Ways to Drown , which was published in 2007 by lubin & kleyner. She is the recipient of the Birkbeck Oustanding Achievement Award (2006) and a grant from the Arts Council of England (2007). Her stories have been featured in Tell Tales , The Mechanics' Institute Review and LITRO . She is currently working on a novel.

Rosie Allabarton

Rosie Allabarton is currently a postgraduate student in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London, and has had her poetry published in Popshot Magazine , Poetry Monthly and Cadaverine . Rosie enjoys the poetry of ee cummings, the short stories of Lorrie Moore and dancing with gay abandon.

Chloe Aridjis

Book of Clouds - extracts plus Q&A

Chloe Aridjis was born in New York, and grew up in the Netherlands and Mexico City. She studied for a BA at Harvard, and gained her DPhil on poetry and magic in nineteenth-century France from Oxford University. She then spent five years in Berlin and now lives in London. Book of Clouds is her first novel.

Back to top

Landslide [podcast not available]

Alan Baban is currently taking a year out from medical school to study for an MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck. He writes regularly for the music e-zine Cokemachineglow and has poems published in the online literary magazine nthposition .

Anna Baggaley

Sexual History

Anna Baggaley gained a BA in English and Drama from Bristol University. Following a brief stint of globetrotting, including a short time living in Berlin, Anna began her career in publishing. She now works in the editorial department of a world-famous romance publisher. Currently living in the messiest house in all of South London, Anna enjoys reading, drinking red wine, eating cake and being right. She is studying for her MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck; her story �The Motherfucking Paperback Queen of Anadarko� will appear in The Mechanics� Institute Review Issue 6 (September 2009).

Battery Boy - extract from Chapter One: Another Day [podcast not available]

Tara Basi had a long career in IT that ended abruptly in 2005. Around the start of 2007 she began writing Battery Boy , partly because she discovered Mervyn Peake in 2006. With no background in writing, academic or otherwise, and nothing published, she started the Creative Writing Certificate course at Birkbeck in October 2009. Battery Boy has grown into a hundred-year epic that she hopes to finally finish this spring. Apart from working on Battery Boy , her homage to Gormenghast , Tara has also been developing a comic novel, Playground Conversations .

Wise Up! - extract plus Q&A

Julia Bell is a novelist and lecturer on Birkbeck�s Creative Writing MA. She has written two novels for young adults � Massive (Young Picador, 2002) and Dirty Work (Young Picador, 2007) � and has just completed her third novel � Wise Up! � which is for �adults�. Julia was a member of the Tindal Street Fiction Group and is the co-editor of the bestselling Creative Writing Coursebook (Macmillan).

Thea Bennett

The Longest Time

Thea Bennett is an actress who grew up in South London before it became a desirable place to live. She has appeared in many roles on TV and in the theatre, and has written novelisations of two children�s TV serials: The Gemini Factor and A Little Silver Trumpet . Thea lives with two parrots, eight orchids and several hundred books, and is currently taking the MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck.

Danny Birchall

Cherry and the Quake

Hip-Hop Picasso

How to Stop Smoking in Nine Easy Dreams

Danny Birchall grew up in N9 and now lives in W9, where he does his shopping at the Chippenham. His work has appeared in nthposition and Right Hand Pointing , and at Tales of the Decongested and Liars� League. This is his third time reading at writLOUD and he sometimes blogs at squaresofwheat.wordpress.com .

Gabriela Blandy

One for Sorrow [podcast not available]

In addition to her first novel, The Silver Bumblebee , Gabriela has written a collection of short stories, one of which won the Royal Society of Literature V. S. Pritchett award in 2007. Gabriela's short stories have been published in The London Magazine , Libbon , The Mechanics� Institute Review and numerous online journals. Gabriela has received two other awards for short fiction (the First Writer International and the Dame Lisbet Throckmorton) and has just been awarded a distinction for her MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London.

Barbara Bleiman

Little Jackie - Chapter Three

Barbara Bleiman is Deputy Director of the English and Media Centre, an educational publisher and teachers� centre. She writes and edits publications for her work, including emagazine , a print magazine for A-level students, and she has had two short stories for children published in English and Media Centre anthologies. She has a children�s novel lying in a cupboard and is currently working on an adult novel based loosely on the early life of her father in South Africa. Its working title is Little Jackie . She has a degree in English from Oxford and started the part-time Creative Writing MA at Birkbeck in September 2009.

Daniel Bourke

Seaweed [podcast not available]

Daniel Bourke is a man of Farnham, although he now lives in North London after a time in East London and before that South Wales. He was born in 1977 and is a sub-editor on the Daily Mirror .

John Braime

We Have Come for Mr Magenta - extract

John Braime lives in Walthamstow. He is currently working on a novel that attempts to combine particle physics, the occult, toasted sandwiches, and old age.

Jonathan Briggs

Great Expectations

Jonathan Briggs is a curmudgeonly old fogey, more than a little frayed around the edges, who came to writing poetry in his mid-fifties as a by-product of coming up with a facial description that needed its proper place. He is now retired from designing in industry, and has just finished a Graduate Certificate course in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, which, if he can overcome incorrgible laziness, should stand him in good stead.

Nicole Burstein

Untitled novel in progress - Chapter One

Nicole has always wanted to be a writer, but was repeatedly told that she needed to find a proper job (and that writing was something she should do �on the side�). So in her 26 years she has managed to be a gallery attendant at the Natural History Museum, the voice of the travel news on numerous London radio stations, a toy demonstrator at Hamleys, a broadcast assistant on the Classic FM Request Show , an audience researcher on The X Factor (series 2) and a queue manager on the London Eye, as well as doing a spot of radio PR work (she is most proud of her efforts to raise the profile of an over-60s sexual lubricant). Last year she decided there really wasn�t anything for her other than writing, so signed up for the Creative Writing MA at Birkbeck. Nicole is currently earning her keep by working as a children�s bookseller at the big Waterstone�s in Piccadilly.

Emily Cleaver

The Bus from the Hospital

Mr Bonner�s Dream the Night Before His Execution

Emily Cleaver has had work published in Smoke and One Eye Grey magazines, performed at the live fiction events Liars� League and Tales of the DeCongested, and is working on a collection of stories set in Victorian London. She works in a second-hand bookshop on Charing Cross Road.

Martha Close

Extraordinary Chambers - extract [podcast not available]

Martha has taught and travelled in Europe, North America and South East Asia. She has now settled in London and is close to completing the MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck. Extraordinary Chambers is her first novel.

Jonathan Coe

The Rain Before It Falls - extract

Jonathan Coe is an award-winning novelist, biographer and critic. His books include The Accidental Woman , A Touch of Love , The Dwarves of Death , What a Carve Up! , The House of Sleep , The Rotters� Club , The Closed Circle , Humphrey Bogart , James Stewart and Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B. S. Johnson . His latest novel, The Rain Before It Falls , was published in September 2007 by Viking.

Serena Colchester

Found Wanting; Quickening

Serena Colchester is a GP and medical educator who is escaping burnout by plunging into poetry and other refreshing genres in the Creative Writing Certificate course at Birkbeck. She is massively supported by her husband, six children and the dog, as well as her loyal patients, who trust her with their stories.

Beth Cordingly

How Not To Do It - extract

Beth studied English and Drama at Birmingham University before training as an actor at Webber Douglas in London. She is an established television and theatre actress, and following her three years as PC Kerry Young in The Bill she has appeared in shows such as Merlin , Secret Diary of a Call Girl , Material Girl and as Veronica in Charlie Brooker�s zombie drama Deadset . Currently halfway through Birkbeck�s MA in Creative Writing Beth was published last year in Dancing with Mr Darcy , an anthology of short stories selected by Sarah Waters (Honno Press). She is working on a novel, How Not To Do It , which follows struggling actress Megan Blinkett�s rise to soap stardom and celebrity, facing everything from red carpets to kissing heartthrobs on screen. Beth is an ambassador for Childline and an indebted member of Nomads, the writing group that keeps her writing.

Amanda Craig

Hearts and Minds - extracts plus Q&A

Amanda Craig was born in South Africa in 1959, and brought up in Italy and Britain. After reading English at Clare College Cambridge, she became an award-winning young journalist in the 1980s. She is the author of six novels: Foreign Bodies (1990), A Private Place (1991), A Vicious Circle (1996), In a Dark Wood (2000), Love In Idleness (2003) and, most recently, Hearts and Minds (2009). Her novels and short stories carry characters on from one book to the next, and Hearts and Minds is a sequel to both A Vicious Circle and Love in Idleness . She lives in London, is a reviewer and broadcaster, and is also the children�s book critic for The Times .

Nadia Crandall

Six Pitches

Nadia Crandall holds an MA in English Literature from Oxford, an MBA from Harvard, and pursues diverse literary interests while working as a director of an investment fund. She has published articles on William Blake and contemporary illustrators, Gothic intertextuality in cyberfiction, the ideology of fairy-tale adaptations and the UK children�s book business, as well as some short fiction. She is currently writing a novel.

Dorothy Crossan

The Manicure

The Runaway Tree

To Whom It May Concern

The Wanderer

Dorothy Crossan dipped her toe into the creative-writing pond in summer 2005, and promptly fell in. What began with a spur-of-the-moment writing holiday on the Greek island of Skyros has developed into a determined rival to her career as a police officer. She graduated from Birkbeck's MA Creative Writing in 2007, has a children's book looking for an agent and is working on her first novel. She enjoys writing in many different voices and gets particular satisfaction from making people laugh.

Alter Ego (a Scouser awakes)

Joe Cullen is a displaced Scouser living for some years in Dalston, East London, where he regularly shares a table at the Mangal kebab restaurant with the blissfully unaware Gilbert and George. Underwhelmed by a career writing sociological reports and other academic texts, he is currently enjoying the benefits of the Birkbeck Creative Writing Programme and a Poetry course at London�s City Lit.

Rita Dallas

Adultery [podcast not available]

Ben and Lily Maud

[biography not available]

Gul Y. Davis

Beneath the Fire

Gul Y. Davis was brought up in London and has just returned after spending some years in Birmingham with serious health problems. A number of his short stories and poems have been placed in competitions and published in anthologies. His novella, A Lone Walk , published by Tindal Street Press in 2001, won the J. B. Priestley Award for Young Writers, and one of his short stories was bought by the BBC and adapted in a radio play broadcast in 2006 on Radio 4. He is currently doing a Creative Writing MA at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Emmanuella Dekonor

The Ex-Factor

Emmanuella has been writing poems since she was six years old. In 1992 she was shortlisted in a Virago poetry competition for her poem �My Sister�. Another poem, �Why colour your judgement?�, was published in an anthology titled Aspects of Love (Poetry Now) in 1995. Emmanuella is seeking representation for her first novel, How to Make Sticky Finger Soup , whilst working on the second, provisionally titled Zubu . She writes a blog called Kenkey and Fish ( www.kenkeyandfish.blogspot.com/ ).

Melissa de Villiers

The Confidence Trick

Melissa de Villiers grew up in South Africa. She now lives in London, where she works as a freelance journalist and editor.

Emma Dunton

Vinegar Alley and Love Walk [podcast not available]

Currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, Emma Dunton is also a producer and consultant in the performing arts. Being brought up in the snowy climes of Norway and swimming in the cold lakes have undoubtedly influenced her writing with a penchant for the magical fairy-tale side of life as opposed to the gritty. She originally studied European literature at the University of East Anglia. She also enjoys baking spelt bread for the people she loves.

Susan Elderkin

Work in progress

Susan Elderkin was born in 1968 and grew up in Leatherhead, Surrey. She studied English at Cambridge University and later, Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, where she was awarded that year's Curtis Brown scholarship. She works as a freelance journalist, teaches Creative Writing at Goldsmiths and City University, and has just completed a six-month fellowship at Birkbeck. Her first novel, Sunset Over Chocolate Mountains (2000), won a Betty Trask Award and was published in nine countries. The following year Susan was listed as one of twenty-one 'Orange Futures' women writers for the twenty-first century. Her second novel, The Voices (2003), was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Ondaatje Prize, in 2005. In 2003, Susan Elderkin was named by Granta magazine as one of twenty 'Best of Young British Novelists'. She currently lives in London, but escapes to remote regions of the world whenever she can.

Zo� Fairbairns

Bus Ticket Revisited

Zo� Fairbairns� stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and have been published in Quality Women�s Fiction , Cosmopolitan and anthologies including Tales I Tell My Mother , By the Light of the Silvery Moon and Tales of Psychotherapy . Her collection How Do You Pronounce Nulliparous? is published by Five Leaves. She teaches short-story writing at the City Lit in London. www.zoefairbairns.co.uk

Cordelia Feldman

Felicity Swims

In Bloom - Chapter 8

In Bloom - Chapter 20

Cordelia Feldman wrote her first novel aged 14, a 900-page Jilly Cooper-style romp entitled Players . Then teenage life, partying, exams and university took over. She left Oxford wanting to write for money, ended up getting a job as Lesley Pollinger�s assistant and realised that she wanted to write fiction specifically for young adults. She enrolled on an evening class at City Lit, a term later got a place on Birkbeck�s Creative Writing MA (from which she has now graduated), and hammered out the first draft of In Bloom in six weeks for a competition. She works part time at an authors� and actors� agency, does media work for mental health charities, follows Formula 1 assiduously, watches her garden birds and enjoys herself as much as possible. She�s happy to have the time and space in which to write.

Charlie Fish

Death by Scrabble

Killing Mildred

Charlie Fish was born in New York in 1980, and now lives in sunny England. He has never won the Booker Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature or an Oscar. However, he has been writing short stories and screenplays ever since he could hold a pen. Find more of his work on his website, www.fictionontheweb.co.uk - the longest-running short-story site on the Internet.

Tracey Franklin

Rain All Night

Tracey works in sustainability where she�s developed a love of bees and green roofs that's nearly a match for her love of cinema, music and friendly monsters. She joined the Creative Writing Certificate course to challenge herself and do something different. Here she is falling in love with poetry.

Liz Fremantle

Liz Fremantle's ambition, to be a Bunny Girl, was thwarted due to her tender age, so she embarked on a career in fashion journalism instead, becoming, eventually, fashion editor at Vogue in London and Paris. She has written for The Erotic Review amongst other titles and currently lives in London where she teaches yoga and is writing her second novel.

Fifty Ways to Haunt Your Lover

Tozza Ascendant

Formerly a Drama teacher, Sue Gedge now writes full time and has recently enrolled on the Certificate course in Creative Writing at Birkbeck. �Tozza Ascendant� was written for her first assignment; �Fifty Ways to Haunt Your Lover� is an extract from the opening chapter of a novel in progress of the same name. As a member of the Dracula Society, she edited their journal Voices from the Vaults for several years, and her stories have appeared in All Hallows , Supernatural Tales and The Silent Companion . Her dream is to find a publisher for her �divorce lit with vampires� novel, The Practical Woman�s Guide to Living with the Undead .

Anupama Kumari Gohel

Anupama Kumari Gohel was brought up and educated in Hampstead, London, but subsequently travelled extensively and has also lived abroad. Those experiences with people and places have shaped her life and are the basis of the stories that she writes. From childhood she has had a passion for storytelling, which both drives and dictates the tempo of her life. One of her main projects has been a book of short stories, all of which have a central connecting theme. Anupama has completed the Certificate in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, and in 2007 she undertook the Master�s degree, also at Birkbeck.

Gaylene Gould

Tough Instead of Brave

Gaylene Gould spends a lot of time finding the time to write. Writing is her favourite thing. Currently a student of Birkbeck�s Creative Writing MA, her first published story appeared in X-24: Unclassified (Lubin & Kleyner, 2007) and she has had critical essays published in a few other places. A lot of her stories start with a feeling and then she works hard to find a beginning, middle and end to clothe it in. She likes reading and dreams of growing up to be Toni Morrison�s and Kurt Vonnegut�s love-child.

Glenys Grant

Dead Daffodils [podcast not available]

Glenys Grant completed the Autobiography and Fiction course at Birkbeck in 2009, and has subsequently embarked on the Graduate Certificate. She has enjoyed poetry since she was a small child but this is the first time she has tried to write any herself. She finds childhood experiences a rich source and is beginning to acknowledge through writing how much of that past she has brought to adult life! Glenys is very interested in the form of poetry, and is struggling at present with blank verse. She enjoys the constraints of a given form � the discipline makes her search harder for the right words � but she likes free verse too.

Jules Grant

We Go Around in the Night and Are Consumed by Fire

Jules Grant was born in Scotland and has spent most of her life in Manchester, where she eventually studied Law. She practised as a barrister in Manchester and Brighton, where she now lives with her partner and writes full time.

Pippa Griffin

Pippa discovered the joy of the short on the long commute between Bedford and London, before moving to the capital 14 years ago. She juggles her love of reading and writing short stories with freelance �thinking and doing�. She was longlisted for the 2006 Fish Short Story Prize and her story �Next Door� is being published by Route in their latest anthology Bonne Route . She is working on a collection of short stories loosely themed around the idea of �the self and other�, which sounds brainier than she really feels.

Rich Hall quit his job as a hurricane namer for the United States Meteorological Service eighteen years ago and hasn't looked back since. He has won the Perrier Comedy Award, Time Out Comedy Award, and two Emmys. He's appeared on QI , Have I Got News for You , and The David Letterman Show , and made the documentary How the West Was Lost in 2008. His books include Things Snowball , Otis Lee Crenshaw: I Blame Society and Self Help for the Bleak . Magnificent Bastards , a collection of short stories, will be published in May 2009.

Chris Hartley

All Grown Up

Chris Hartley misspent fifteen years working in the City before taking up writing in 2006. He apologises for any inconvenience he, or any of his employers, may have caused during this time, but is unable to offer any refunds. He has partially atoned for past sins by going through purgatory writing an unpublishable first novel about Heavy Rock music, called Does Anybody Remember Laughter? The MA at Birkbeck represents a serious attempt to learn to write properly. He loves Arsenal FC and Charles Dickens in broadly equal measure.

Jacqueline Haskell

The Book of Miracles - Chapter One: Daniel

The Dark Inside - Chapter 1

Poems - Terracotta; Three Days You Were Gone; Fine White Pieces

Jacqui Haskell began writing poetry, prose and drama in her early teens. She turned down a place at Oxford for a career in the theatre and in 1991 she won an Arts Council Best Director award. Jacqui graduates from the full-time MA on Birkbeck�s Creative Writing Programme in September 2009. She hopes to go on to do a PhD in the literature of myth and memory. Meanwhile, she�s returning to her native Dorset and delivering courses in Creative Writing for the WEA. Her fiction has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies.

Thaddeus Hickman

Consumivore

Thaddeus has just been released onto the world from the two-year Certificate in Creative Writing at Birkbeck. Believing that short-story writing has an enormous amount to offer the writer and reader, he feels he is close to scratching the surface, his enthusiasm driven by what might lie beneath.

Sally Hinchcliffe

Out of a Clear Sky - extract

Sally Hinchcliffe was born in London and grew up all over the world as her father served the Foreign Office in New York, Kuwait, Tanzania, Dubai, Zambia and Jordan. She was among the first students to take Birkbeck�s Creative Writing MA, and helped set up and edit the first issue of The Mechanics� Institute Review . She worked for many years in the IT department at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, developing databases to support its scientific work, but this year gave up her job to move to Scotland and write full time. Out of a Clear Sky (Macmillan, 2008) is her first novel.

Peter Hobbs

The Short Day Dying - extract

Peter Hobbs was born in 1973, and grew up in Cornwall and Yorkshire. His first novel, The Short Day Dying (Faber and Faber), won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Award. It was followed in 2006 by a collection of short stories: I Could Ride All Day in My Cool Blue Train (Faber and Faber). Stories from the collection have been anthologised in Zembla , New Writing 13 , and X-24 Unclassified . He lives in London.

Graham Hodge

You�re Listening to Paul Power - extract

Graham Hodge has written various articles for the Guardian , Observer , Vertigo , Broadcast , Music Week , Media Week , Five Eight and LBiQ . He has also written and produced a number of short films, the most recent of which, Exit Strategy , has been selected for the Bradford and Palm Springs film festivals. He is currently finishing an MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London. You�re Listening To Paul Power is his first book.

Matthew Hooton

Deloume Road - extracts

Matthew Hooton grew up on Vancouver Island, Canada, and obtained a BA in Writing from the University of Victoria. He went on to publish non-fiction in several Canadian newspapers and magazines before moving to England and completing an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, where Deloume Road was awarded the inaugural Greene & Heaton Prize for the best novel to emerge from the Bath Spa MA in Creative Writing. Matthew has worked as an editor and teacher in several cities in South Korea. He now lives with his wife in Victoria, British Columbia.

Robert Hudson

The Kilburn Social Club - extracts plus Q&A

Robert Hudson was born in Harare, Zimbabwe and raised in Essex. He has a PhD in intellectual history from Cambridge University. He has recently been commissioned by the Gershwin estate to write a musical based on Gershwin�s songs. He plays sport all the time, including hockey for Spencer in South London. Robert lives in Kilburn and works as a freelance journalist.

Catherine Humble

Death Knock - Chapter 1 of work in progress

Catherine Humble is a journalist for the Telegraph . She is a book reviewer for the TLS and has written for the Observer . �Death Knock� is the opening chapter from work in progress.

Alison Huntington

A Little Help from My Friends

Tidings - extract from a novel in progress

Alison Huntington grew up in South Wales, lives in London and writes about both. She has just completed the Birkbeck Creative Writing MA and is polishing her dissertation. �Tidings� is an extract from a novel in progress. A different extract became a short story called �All or Nothing�, published in Issue 5 of The Mechanics� Institute Review .

Joanna Ingham

Walking with Lucy

Joanna Ingham works primarily in arts and heritage education, with a particular interest in poetry, scriptwriting and women's history. She is co-writing a site-specific play for a community space in North Cornwall. In 2007 she collaborated with a group of young women in Kent to write a libretto, which went on to be performed by a choir of 200. Joanna is currently based at The Women's Library and has a background in new writing theatre.

Ilona Jesnick

Crazy Horse and the Berlin Murders

Ilona Jesnick, a Londoner, has written since schooldays, but diverged onto the equally alluring path of the visual arts; she has a Goldsmiths� MA in Fine Art, has exhibited, taught drawing, painting and History of Art, and published a monograph on ancient Roman mosaics. All the while the pages of fiction kept piling up. Now on the MA Creative Writing at Birkbeck, she has written short stories and embarked on a first novel.

Kavita Jindal

Act of Faith; Ellipsing, Elapsing

Phosphorus - extract from Chapter 1

Kavita Jindal is a poet and fiction writer whose work has appeared in literary journals, newspapers and anthologies. Her poetry collection, Raincheck Renewed , was published by Chameleon Press in 2004 and received critical and popular acclaim. Kavita was born in India. Since 1985 she has divided her time between India, Hong Kong and England. Currently she is completing her first novel and working on a new poetry collection. Some of her work can be read on her website: www.kavitajindal.com

Derek Johns

Wintering - extract

Derek Johns has been a bookseller, editor and publisher and now works as a literary agent in London.

Russell Celyn Jones

Lord of Dyfed - extract

Ten Seconds from the Sun - extract

Russell Celyn Jones is the author of Soldiers and Innocents , which won the David Higham Prize, Small Times , An Interference of Light , The Eros Hunter , Surface Tension and Ten Seconds from the Sun . He has taught at the universities of Iowa, East Anglia, and the Western Cape, South Africa, and currently runs the Creative Writing Programme at Birkbeck, University of London. The Ninth Wave , a retelling of one of the stories in the Welsh folktale collection The Mabinogion , from which �Lord of Dyfed� is an extract, was published by Seren in October 2009.

John Kalmus

John Kalmus has worked in pure mathematics research, IT project management, management consultancy, Portuguese-English translation and is now a tutor at the Open University Business School. His short story �The Dance� and his prose-poem �there� are both based on coursework he presented during Birkbeck�s Graduate Certificate in Creative Writing (2008-09). In fiction writing, John is fascinated by the idea of �unreliable narration�, the non-linear use of time, and the way in which narratives construct meaning. When writing poetry, John likes to experiment with enjambement, half-rhymes and non-traditional rhyme schemes to �subvert� traditional verse forms like the sonnet, villanelle and tanka.

J. D. Keith

J. D. Keith is a full-time MA Creative Writing student at Birkbeck. He writes both poetry and short fiction and has performed poetry in English and Spanish, winning Farrago's London Slam in 2006 and reaching the finals of BBC Radio 4's Poetry Slam in 2007. 'The Drum' is part of a collection of interconnected short stories that he is currently writing. Two other stories in the collection will be published later this year in The Mechanics' Institute Review Issue 5 and Tell Tales IV .

Richard T. Kelly

Crusaders - extracts

Richard T. Kelly was born in 1970. He is the author of Alan Clarke (1998), The Name of This Book is Dogme95 (2000), and the highly acclaimed biography Sean Penn: His Life and Times (2004). He also edited Ten Bad Dates with De Niro: A Book of Alternative Film Lists (2007). Crusaders is his first novel.

A. L. Kennedy

Story of My Life

A. L. Kennedy is the author of 5 novels, 4 collections of short stories � the most recent, What Becomes , was published in August 2009 (Jonathan Cape) - and two non-fiction works. She also writes for the stage, radio, film and TV and a number of national and international newspapers. She has a blog in the New Statesman under the heading Obsessive Compulsive. She has won a number of awards including the Costa Prize, a Lannan Award and the Austrian State Prize for International Literature. She has twice been included in the Granta list of Best of Young British Novelists.

Rosamond Kindersley

Rosamond Kindersley grew up in Wales and now lives in Stockwell and works in Soho. She has written several short stories, a few feature articles and is currently working on the second draft of a novel.

Olja Knezevic

In Seka's Country

Olja Knezevic was born and raised in a country called Yugoslavia that doesn�t exist any more. Now she has to say she�s from Montenegro. She has been living in London for three years and is working on her first novel. She has two kids who sit on her shoulders while she writes.

Stay God - extract

Nik Korpon grew up in and around Baltimore, Maryland. He is finishing an MA Creative Writing degree at Birkbeck, University of London, and has lived in London and Portugal. He has had several short stories published, in The Mechanics� Institute Review #4 as well as several journals and magazines in the US. Stay God is his first novel. He currently lives in Western Massachusetts.

Hari Kunzru

My Revolutions

Hari Kunzru is the author of The Impressionist , Transmission and the short-story collection Noise , and was named one of Granta�s Best of Young British Novelists, 2003. He is a contributing editor of Mute magazine and sits on the executive council of English PEN. He lives in East London. www.harikunzru.com

Cynthia Medford Langley

Buckshot and the Blonde Coyote

Cynthia Medford Langley is a student in Birkbeck�s MA Creative Writing programme. Her stories and essays have appeared in Puerto del Sol , Beacon Street Review , Pangolin Papers , The Sun Magazine , Downtown Brooklyn Review , American Agriculturist , Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society and The Mechanics� Institute Review . �Buckshot and the Blonde Coyote� is the first chapter from her novel-in-progress, Magic America .

Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone

Home - extract

Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone was born in Kenya and now lives and works in London. A graduate of the Birkbeck MA in Creative Writing, she is co-founder of Tales of the DeCongested, a monthly short-story reading event held at Foyles Bookshop, Charing Cross Road; partner of the independent publishing company Apis Books; and teaches creative writing at City University. Rebekah was awarded an Arts Council Grant in 2007 to complete her first novel, Home , about a corrupt care home.

Xavier Leret

The Boy - extract

Turn the Porn On [podcast not available]

As the former Artistic Director and founder of the award winning KAOS Theatre, Xavier Leret�s writing credits include Renaissance (a Millennium Award winner), The Fantastical Adventures of Leonardo Da Vinci (a commission for the International Festival of Perth, Western Australia), an adaptation of The Master and Margarita (nominated for the best production on the Dublin Fringe and an Edinburgh Fringe First), Thirst , Alice , Mine and Swing . Directing credits include The Importance of Being Earnest (Winner of The Stage Award � Best Ensemble, Time Out Critics Choice), Volpone (nominated for The Stage Award � Best Ensemble), Titus Andronicus and Richard III (nominated for a Manchester Evening News Award). Xavier�s first feature film, MINE , was selected as a breakthrough movie for LUFF 2007 and his second, Unarmed But Dangerous , was released on DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment in 2009. He regularly contributes stories for the iPhone through Feedbooks and is currently working on two novels.

K. K. Lilith

The Farewell Tour [podcast not available]

K. K. Lilith currently lives in London having escaped the bellybutton of Britain and the fluff that gathers there. Her work has featured in the Serpent�s Tail 2003 anthology Kin . She can survive on 4 hours� sleep a night but prefers 12 where possible.

Chris Lilly

The Dream That Kicks

Picture This

Chris Lilly was born in Dartford, Kent, round the corner from Mick Jagger's mum. He got a degree from Hull University in 1976, and moved to East London, where he has lived and worked ever since. He teaches in Tower Hamlets, lives on the Isle of Dogs, and has recently acquired a Creative Writing Certificate from Birkbeck. He is working on a novel about British Blues, drinking Polish beer and trying to play electric bass. Research, obviously.

King Death - extract plus Q&A

Toby Litt was born in 1968 and grew up in Ampthill, Bedfordshire. He is the author of eleven alphabetically titled books: Adventures in Capitalism , Beatniks , Corpsing , deadkidsongs , Exhibitionism , Finding Myself , Ghost Story , Hospital , I play the drums in a band called okay , Journey into Space and King Death . In 2003, Toby was named one of Granta�s Best of Young British Novelists, and he was the winner of the 2009 Manchester Fiction Prize. He is a regular on Radio 3�s The Verb . A film adaptation of King Death , co-written by Toby, is being produced by Alexandra Stone; it will be directed and co-written by Gerald McMorrow.

Karen Livingstone

A Stone for Your Cairn - opening chapter

Karen Livingstone is from Glasgow and lives in London. Having studied Law and then Russian language, she is due to complete her MA in Creative Writing this year. Karen works in Investment Banking and is currently writing her first novel.

Matthew Loukes

Estrella Damn - Chapter 10

Estrella Damn - extracts from Chapters 17 & 25

Estrella Damn - Chapter 24

Goose Flesh - Chapter 7

Goose Flesh - Chapter 15

Goose Flesh - Chapter 26

Goose Flesh - Chapter 27

Matthew Loukes graduated from the inaugural Birkbeck Creative Writing MA in 2005. Aged 44, he lives in North London. Estrella Damn , a London crime novel featuring investigator Slim Gunter, was published by Soul Bay Press in 2008. His second novel, Goose Flesh � another Slim Gunter story � was published in November 2009.

Laurel Mackie

Laurel Mackie is a graduate of the University of Alberta, currently studying for a Certificate in Creative Writing at Birkbeck. Her work has been broadcast nationally in Canada on CBC Radio. She lives and teaches in South London and is an active member of the Headless Writers� Group.

Philip Makatrewicz

I Wanna Be Your Dog - extract

Sophie�s Angel

Philip Makatrewicz is a Londoner born of Polish parents. He is currently editing his novel and working on a documentary about Emanuel Swedenborg.

Anthony Malone

Ghosts of the Real Leather Jacket

The Urge Purged

The Vanishing Act

Anthony Malone is 34 and has lived and travelled widely in South London. His fiction has appeared on the Guardian Online website, performed at the London events writLOUD, Tales of the Decongested and Liars� League, and recorded for London Link Radio. He once appeared on Jim'll Fix It but, sadly, wasn't fixed.

Benjamin Markovits

A Quiet Adjustment - extract from Chapter 2

Benjamin Markovits grew up in Texas, London and Berlin. He left an unpromising career as a professional basketball player to study the Romantics. Since then he has taught high-school English, edited a left-wing cultural magazine and written essays, stories and reviews for, among other publications, the New York Times , the Guardian , the London Review of Books and The Times Literary Supplement . His first novel, The Syme Papers , was published by Faber in 2004; it described a man who thought he could prove the earth was hollow. His second, Either Side of Winter , was set at a New York high school. He is currently at work on a trilogy of novels about Lord Byron. Markovits has lived in London since 2000 and is married with one daughter. He teaches creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. A Quiet Adjustment is his fourth novel.

Emer Martin

Baby Zero - extracts plus Q&A

Emer Martin is a Dubliner who has lived in Paris, London, the Middle East, and various places in the US. Her first novel, Breakfast in Babylon , won Book of the Year 1996 in her native Ireland at the prestigious Listowel Writers� Week. More Bread Or I�ll Appear , her second novel, was published in 1999; Baby Zero , her third, was published in 2007. Emer studied painting in New York and has had a sell-out solo show of her paintings at the Origin Gallery in Dublin. She is also a film-maker, and produced Irvine Welsh�s directorial debut NUTS in 2007. Emer was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000. She now lives in the jungles of Co. Meath, Ireland.

Jaidyn Martin

Jaidyn Martin hails from Minneapolis, the same city as Prince, and likes to think that she assists him in making that small metropolis surrounded by cornfields just a little bit more interesting. Despite being one of the coolest things about the Midwest, Jaidyn decided to pack her bags for London to continue her education in life and pleasure. She holds an undergrad degree in poetry, is currently completing an MA in Creative Writing, and writing her first novel.

Jean McNeil

The Ice Lovers - extracts

Jean McNeil is originally from Nova Scotia, Canada. She has published four books of fiction, a travel book and two books of literary essays, one on the work and personal library of Graham Greene. After spending a decade working in Latin America and the UK, recently she has been spending time in the polar regions: in 2005/06 she was a British Antarctic Survey/Arts Council fellow, and will spend the summer of 2009 at sea in Greenland. She teaches on the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Cambridge University. A novel set in the Antarctic, The Ice Lovers , will be published in 2009.

Fiona Melrose

Animal Cycle - poems

Fiona Melrose writes both poetry and fiction. She is currently working on a cycle of poems using animal totems and familiars to explore natural archetypes as manifestations of the collective unconscious. She was born in South Africa; after a spell in London she now lives in rural Suffolk.

Frances Merivale

Frances Merivale is working on her second novel, The Exercise Man , about a failed 1960s� experimental musician, forced to experiment with a new life after his house burns down. Her first novel is on the shelf, but the main character is a stalker and unlikely to remain ignored for too much longer. Frances works as a fundraiser for UNICEF and is part of Liars� Cramp, a �live fiction� group that performs story readings in London. She has published four short stories and is working intermittently on a collection called Audio Clive and the Misfits . Next year she hopes to join a banana cargo boat to start research for her next novel.

Magnus Mills

The Maintenance of Headway - extracts plus Q&A

Magnus Mills� first novel, The Restraint of Beasts , was shortlisted for the 1998 Booker Prize, the 1998 Whitbread First Novel Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and won the 1999 McKitterick Prize. His other work includes All Quiet on the Orient Express , Only When the Sun Shines Brightly , Three to See the King , The Scheme for Full Employment , Once in a Blue Moon and Explorers of the New Century . He currently drives a bus and is learning to play the piano. His work has appeared in over twenty languages.

Richard Milward

Ten Storey Love Song - extracts plus Q&A

Richard Milward submitted his first novel to Faber when he was just 16. Apples , his first published novel, came out in 2007 when he was 22, and received huge critical acclaim. In 2007 Richard was shortlisted for the South Bank Show Times Breakthrough Award and he has recently graduated from Central St Martin�s Art College with a Fine Art degree. He lives in Middlesbrough, where he grew up.

Blake Morrison

The Last Weekend - extract plus Q&A

Blake Morrison was born in Skipton, Yorkshire. He is the author of the bestselling memoirs When Did You Last See Your Father? and Things My Mother Never Told Me , two novels � most recently, South of the River (2007) � and a study of the Bulger case, As If . He is also a critic, journalist, librettist and poet. Since 2003, Blake has been Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College. He lives in south London, with his family.

Niall O�Sullivan

Homo Erectus Catches the Northern Line Home and other poems [podcast not available]

Niall O�Sullivan has released two collections of poetry � you�re not singing anymore and Ventriloquism for Monkeys � with Flipped Eye. He has performed poetry all over the UK and Europe for more than ten years. In 2009, Niall featured on BBC radio and television during his residency at the 2009 Wimbledon Tennis Championships. He runs London�s biggest open-mic poetry night, Poetry Unplugged, every Tuesday at the Poetry Caf�.

Nii Ayikwei Parkes

Tail of the Blue Bird plus Q&A

Nii Ayikwei Parkes is a poet, writer, performer, socio-cultural commentator and editor. Former Poet-In-Residence at the Poetry Caf�, he is the author of three poetry chapbooks � eyes of a boy, lips of a man (1999), M is for Madrigal (2004) and Shorter (2005) � and has performed his work all over the world. As a socio-cultural commentator and advocate for African writing, Nii has led forums internationally, has featured in BBC radio programmes, runs the African Writers� Evening series at the Poetry Caf� and has set up the Writers� Fund, an initiative aimed at providing opportunities and finance for young writers in Ghana. He is Senior Editor at flipped eye publishing, regularly edits x magazine and, with Courttia Newland, co-edited the groundbreaking Tell Tales Volume I short-story anthology. Tail of the Blue Bird was published in June 2009 by Jonathan Cape.

Marie Phillips

Gods Behaving Badly - extract

Marie Phillips was born in London in 1976 and has lived there all her life. She studied Social Anthropology and Visual Anthropology and worked in TV for several years. She left TV to become a writer in 2003, and worked in bookshops while she was writing Gods Behaving Badly . She now writes full time. As well as writing fiction Marie has a blog on all things popular culture which is at www.womanwhotalkedtoomuch.blogspot.com

Esther Poyer

Georgetown Girl, Fruit Cake and This Sky [podcast not available]

Esther is a fiction writer, poet and creative life coach, with a BA (Hons) in Film, Video and Photographic Arts from the University of Westminster. Both independently and as a member of the writing collective, Malika�s Poetry Ktichen, she has performed her work at venues that include the Barbican, Foyles Gallery and the Albany Theatre. Esther is currently working on the second draft of her novel, Pieces of a Dream and a poetry collection, Memory of a Middle Child . She is an MA Creative Writing student at Birkbeck and lives in London with her son, where she also enjoys pottering in her garden, complete with vegetable patch.

Alex Preston

This Bleeding City - extracts plus Q&A

Alex Preston was born in 1979 and lives in London. He was educated at Bishop Luffa Comprehensive and then read English at Hertford College, Oxford under Tom Paulin. He is Global Head of Trading at a leading City firm and is a regular commentator on the loan and credit markets, including appearances at industry conferences in Europe, Japan and the US. He previously worked on the trading floor of an investment bank. Alex is currently training for a triathlon, studying for an MA in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck, and working on his second novel.

Kate Pullinger

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

Kate Pullinger works both in print and new media. Her most recent novels include A Little Stranger (2006), Weird Sister (1999) and The Last Time I Saw Jane (1996), and the short-story collections My Life as a Girl in a Men�s Prison (1997) and Tiny Lies (1989). Her current digital fiction projects include her multiple-award-winning collaboration with Chris Joseph on �Inanimate Alice�, a multimedia episodic digital fiction � www.inanimatealice.com � and �Flight Paths� � www.flightpaths.net � a networked novel, created on and through the Internet. She�s also involved in developing a fiction for mobile phones. Kate Pullinger is Reader in Creative Writing and New Media at De Montfort University where she teaches on the online MA in Creative Writing and New Media � www.dmu.ac.uk/faculties/humanities/pg/ma/cwnm.jsp . Her next novel, The Mistress of Nothing , will come out in 2009. www.katepullinger.com

Linda Quinn

The Toffee Man - Chapter Three: The Morning After

The Toffee Man - Chapter Nine: Sunday School

The Toffee Man - Chapter Eighteen: What the Eyes Don�t See

Linda Quinn worked as an actress and director for 15 years, and currently works as a Creative Writing and English tutor at City Lit. The Toffee Man is her first novel, and is told through the eyes of April, a ten-year-old girl. It is set in 1969, the summer of the first moon landings, in a small countryside village. The book follows April�s friendship with the Toffee Man, and the wisdom of innocence. The Toffee Man was first conceived as a film, and original plans to make a pilot have now developed into the making of a feature-length film to be directed by Linda Marlowe, with Marc Warren and Tanya Franks. Linda Quinn is currently redrafting both the novel and the script. She was inspired by, and has met, the man on the moon!

The Red Shoes

T. Rawson has just completed the two-year Certificate in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, and is working on a novel about the social and political effects of the Industrial Revolution and how they affect one family. Her entry into Issue 4 of The Mechanics� Institute Review is the first time she has been published. One of her ambitions is to have a radio play accepted for production.

Josh Raymond

Blue Elephant

Cherry Blossoms [podcast not available]

El Salvador del Rey

Those Who Can

Josh Raymond is a rowing coach. His short stories have appeard in The Mechanics� Institute Review and Tales of the DeCongested , and he sometimes writes book reviews for the TLS . �Cherry Blossoms� will appear in a chapbook collection, to be published by Apis Books in 2011, in collaboration with the artist Katherine Jones.

Nina Robertson

Mother Love

Nina Robertson lives on the Norfolk Broads. After a chequered career as a carpenter, a library manager, a school teacher and a teacher of Ecstatic dance, she finally got round to doing what she�d wanted to do all along and started writing. She has written several short stories and been published in The Mechanics� Institute Review and Tales of the Decongested . She is currently working on her first novel.

Lucy Roeber

Lucy Roeber gave up her job as assistant editor of Prospect magazine five years ago, moved to Paris and wrote her first novel. She�s now based back in London and engaged in writing historical fiction. She is married with two children.

Monique Roffey

The White Woman on the Green Bicycle

Monique Roffey was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and educated in the UK. After studying English at UEA she worked as a journalist, then travelled to the Middle East, mostly living in Jerusalem, teaching English for the British Council. On her return, she worked for Amnesty International before doing an MA in Creative Writing at Lancaster University. Her highly acclaimed d�but novel, Sun Dog , was published in 2002. Since then she has worked as a Centre Director for the Arvon Foundation and has held the post of Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Sussex and Chichester universities. She currently teaches Creative Writing, edits occasionally, and lives in Harlesden, North London, where she spends most of the day in her pyjamas, writing. The White Woman on the Green Bicycle was shortlisted for the 2010 Orange Prize.

Rosie Rogers

In a Place Like This

Rosie Rogers teaches Drama and Film Studies. She is currently redrafting her first novel, In a Place Like This . She lives in Brighton with her two daughters, who provide her with inspiration as well as occasional forays into cake baking. She is spending the summer writing in fitful bouts, having forsaken a �proper� summer holiday to work on her dissertation/novel. When inclined, she also writes poetry and short stories, and has a story in Birkbeck�s forthcoming Mechanics� Institute Review Issue 4 , (published September 2007).

Michael Rosen

Selected Poems plus Q&A

Michael Rosen was born in 1946 in North London. One of the best-known figures in the children's book world, he is renowned for his work as a poet, performer, broadcaster and scriptwriter. As an author and by selecting other writers� works for anthologies he has been involved with over 140 books. He lectures and teaches in universities on children�s literature, reading and writing. Michael is a familiar voice to BBC listeners and is currently presenting Word of Mouth , the magazine programme that looks at the English language and the way we use it. He visits schools with his one-man show to enthuse children with his passion for books and poetry. He was one of the first poets to make visits to schools throughout the UK and has also visited schools throughout the world.

Lydia Hartland-Rowe

Bastard Bass, Double Bass, Chasing Magpies, Thieving Magpies, Magpie Divorce

Lydia Hartland-Rowe came to London 30 years ago to learn to play the double bass. She recently realised that in order to write she would actually have to write things down as well as think them up, and has taken modules in the Creative Writing Certificate at Birkbeck to help her get better at the thinking up and the writing down, and worse at the putting off. Lydia works as a child psychotherapist in the NHS.

When Your Mother Dies

Paul Ryan is a first-year student on the Certificate in Creative Writing course at Birkbeck. �When Your Mother Dies�, in Issue 4 of The Mechanics' Institute Review ), is his first published story . He is an assistant editor on a consumer magazine and previously worked on local newspapers and as a teacher of English as a foreign language.

Sarah Salway

Potassium Man

Sarah Salway is the author of two novels, Something Beginning With and Tell Me Everything (Bloomsbury), and the short-story collection Leading the Dance (bluechrome). An Internet collaboration with Lynne Rees resulted in Messages (bluechrome). She currently teaches Creative Writing at the University of Sussex.

Elizabeth Sarkany

How Michael Stays Young

Mummy's Boy

Elizabeth Sarkany worked as an NHS doctor between 1983 and 2002. She began writing fiction in 2000, since when she�s had several stories published in magazines such as Quality Women�s Fiction and Tears in the Fence , and in anthologies from Loki and Earlyworks Press. She has been shortlisted for �Speakeasy� and for �Coast-to-Coast� and has had a story broadcast on BBC Radio 4 as part of �Opening Lines� � a showcase for emerging writers of the short-story form. She has also published non-fiction in peer-review journals, as well as in Bereavement Care and the Guardian .

Lesley Saunders

Dead Sonnet

Lesley Saunders quit newspaper journalism to write fiction five years ago. She has written one novel and is currently working on a collection of short stories.

Amanda Schiff

The Good Dancing Partner - extract: The Day of the Dead

The Good Dancing Partner - extract: Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Amanda Schiff is a film producer and lecturer in screenwriting. She was one of the first MA Creative Writing graduates from Birkbeck in 2004, and one of the seven editors who set up The Mechanics' Institute Review . Her short story �Anamorphic Breakup� was published in Issue 1. In 2001 she was shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger awards. Apart from developing feature-film projects, she is currently co-writing screenplays . . . and still has hopes of finishing the novel.

Moira Sharpe

Moira Sharpe grew up in York, but is now firmly settled in Hackney and works as a careers adviser in an adult college. She has just completed the Certificate in Creative Writing at Birkbeck and is working on a collection of short stories.

Jeremy Sheldon

Let Me Tell You What I Know plus Q&A

Jeremy Sheldon is the author of the novel The Smiling Affair (2005) and the short-story collection The Comfort Zone (2002), and is currently working on his third book as well as a series of commissioned short stories. He teaches Creative Writing at Birkbeck, at Imperial College, and for the Arvon Foundation. He has also worked as a reader for a number of respected literary agencies and as a script consultant, specialising in adaptations, for several major film production companies.

Michelle Shine

Michelle lives and works in North London. She is a registered homeopath, practising in the private sector and the author of the text book What About the Potency? (Food for Thought Publications, 2004). She enjoys reading, yoga, growing her own vegetables and watching Jean-Paul Belmondo, and is currently studying for her MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck.

Elizabeth Simpson

Homing Pigeons

Liz Simpson has lived in Islington since before it became, briefly, home to the Blairs. A lifelong scribbler in various formats, including poetry and scientific papers, she recently took the plunge into the two-year Certificate in Creative Writing course at Birkbeck, and got hooked on the joys and demands of the short story. This is her first reading at writLOUD.

Helen Simpson

Up at a Villa

Helen Simpson is the author of four highly acclaimed short-story collections: Four Bare Legs in a Bed (1990), Dear George (1995), Hey Yeah Right Get a Life (2000) and Constitutional (2005). In 1991 she was chosen as the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year and won the Somerset Maugham Award. In 1993 she was named as one of Granta �s twenty Best of Young British Novelists. She lives in North London.

Steve Smithson

Passing the Leek

Steve Smithson completed Birkbeck�s Certificate in Creative Writing last year and is now halfway through a part-time MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths. He is a mature student, at least in terms of age count. His day job is a senior lecturer in information systems at the London School of Economics. Somewhat bored with the delights of computers, he turned to writing. He is currently writing mostly short stories as he tries to find a voice to attempt a longer work. He has always lived in London but travels extensively.

Amanda Smyth

Black Rock - extract (with apologies for the glitch at around 2 minutes 20 seconds) plus Q&A

Amanda Smyth is Irish/Trinidadian. She completed an MA in Creative Writing at UEA in 2000. Her short stories have been published in New Writing , London Magazine , and broadcast on Radio 4 as part of a series called Love and Loss. Amanda was awarded an Arts Council Grant for her first novel, Black Rock .

Margot Stedman

Notes of Experiments on Mice and Other Mammals [The podcast is no longer available, but you can read the story in Issue 6 of The Mechanics' Institute Review , published September 2009.]

Originally from Western Australia, Margot Stedman has lived in London for many years. Her works have been published in Tales of the Decongested Volume 1, Litro , and Desperate Remedies � an anthology of new fiction published by Apis Books in April 2008. She is currently working on a short-story collection.

Laura Tapsfield

My Brother, the Soldier

Laura grew up in Ham and after travelling, working in advertising and studying English Literature at Queen Mary, University of London, has now settled in Nunhead. She is currently studying towards her MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, writing short stories and screenplays.

Judith Taylor

Judith Taylor has been writing most of her life, on and off, but more on than off since she completed the Birkbeck Certificate in Creative Writing, and became a member of the Writers Block group of Birkbeck graduates. She has just completed a novel and is becoming familiar with the various ways in which publishers and agents can say �no�. However, she has had a number of books on careers and training published by Kogan Page Ltd. Paid employment has been in universities, and she is currently interested in issues related to mid-life and mid-career transitions.

Georgia Ijeoma Ugwu

Winds of Harmattan - extract

Georgia Ijeoma Ugwu lives in London and works as an IT consultant. She has a BSc in Economics and MSc in Business Information Technology. She is currently studying Data Mining and Data Warehousing. Her major distraction is writing; it keeps her sane and insane. She is taking a course in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London, which is definitely helping to refine her stories, one of which has recently been selected for honourable mention in the African Diaspora Short Story Competition.

James Vincent

Cards and Lorries [podcast not available]

James Vincent was born in South London, where he still lives. He has worked in education and financial research, and received his MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck in September 2007. He is currently a freelance editor and business writer. He is redrafting his first novel, which is set in Deptford and features a seamstress who believes she is immortal.

Stephen Vowles

Learning to Bowl [podcast not available]

Learning to Bowl

Stephen Vowles was born in 1955 in Hanover, Germany whilst his father was serving with the British Army. Until recently he worked in the City, trading in European Equities. Currently studying on the Graduate Certificate at Birkbeck, he has had a short story, �The Long Way Home�, accepted for the forthcoming MIR7 , and is currently working on a body of short and flash fiction. Also a photographer, his images have been extensively published worldwide.

Erica Wagner

Seizure - extract

Erica Wagner was born in New York City. She is the author of Gravity: Stories (Granta) and Ariel�s Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and the Story of �Birthday Letters� (Faber). She lives in London where she is the literary editor of The Times . www.ericawagner.co.uk

Amy Schreibman Walter

Mucky Puddles, Literal, Red Shoes and Miscarriage [podcast no longer available]

Amy was born in Florida to parents from the edge of Brooklyn, but she has called London her home for several years now. Amy teaches Year 4 at the American School in London; her favourite subject to teach eight-year-olds is poetry.

Matthew Weait

Air and Sea and Salt

Ladybird - Chapter Four

Matthew Weait is a legal academic working in the field of criminal law, health care and human rights. His monograph Intimacy and Responsibility was published by Routledge in 2007. Matthew�s short stories have appeared in the 2001 Fish anthology Asylum 1928 , and in Issue 5 of The Mechanics� Institute Review . He is interested in the potential for using creative writing in the teaching and learning of law, and is working on his first novel.

Alice Fitzgerald Wickham

On the Rocks and In the Sands - extract

Alice considers writing to be an obsessive-compulsive disorder and has been writing stories ever since she first learned to scrawl her name on the settee. She�s had some short stories published in various independent magazines, and a screenplay shortlisted for Channel 4. In the 1990s she was the publisher and editor of New London Writers , a magazine for up-and-coming new writers with an emphasis on multi-culturalism and diversity. As a writer, Alice is always intrigued by the elasticity of the English language and the various ways in which �that lady has gone a roving�. She�s currently working on a teenage novel, set in the lyrical landscape of 1970s Dublin.

Malcolm Wilson

Poems - To Michael Field; If this is a man; John and Helen; Love Positions

Six Poems - Being You, Oradour, Row K, Birches, Ghost Shroud, Lesson One: Simple Greetings

Spring: six poems written through the dark this winter - At the Awards, Wasting Time, Bastard Baby, Love Song, The Weariness of Trains, Irregular Rhythm

Three Sacred Poems

Malcolm Wilson is fascinated by the sound, feel, form and power of words. His poetry is marked by his life and work around London, and by his love of mountains. Malcolm is married with a thirteen-year-old daughter and recently graduated from Birkbeck. His influences include Ezra Pound, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Osip Mandelstam. He writes a lot on tube trains, up and down escalators and in Starbucks. He was longlisted for the Fish International Poetry Prize and was UK runner-up in First Writer�s international poetry competition. His poetry blog is at www.metro-poetry.blogspot.com .

Sarah Wilson

In Transition - poems about change

Person Under a Train, Crossings, Ice and Snow

Sarah Wilson loves her family, friends, mountains, London and interesting strangers. She has been writing half-decent poetry for the last five years and hopes one day to be really good at it. She hates obvious rhyme and does everything she can to screw about with it. But she loves rhythm (ask the people who stand a safe distance from her frenzied dancing at Glastonbury) and the feel of words in her mouth. She�s married with a 14-year-old daughter and is now edging towards becoming a Quaker. Sarah�s poetry centres on her experience, her family and her friends.

Rachael Withers

That Still Counts As Eating, You Know

Rachael Withers was inspired to start writing after accidentally kicking her host family�s dog on a French exchange. She began her writing career with a short article in her school newspaper detailing all the embarrassing things she did while in France. Since then she has travelled further afield, but has always retained a remarkable aptitude for faux pas. After university Rachael lived in Japan for six years. She spent this time teaching English and writing various articles and short stories. She also learnt how to swear comprehensively in Japanese. Rachael is currently studying for the MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck and is on the editorial team of the 2010 issue of The Mechanics� Institute Review . Over the last year [to April 2010] she has written a series of articles for the travel guide 100 Journeys for the Spirit . She continues to explore the short story.

Maggie Womersley

Confessions of a Fuzzy Man - extract

Maggie Womersley completed the Birkbeck MA in Creative Writing in 2007. Her first novel, Eddie Bain�s House of Horrors , tells the story of a young family who discover a human skeleton under their garden shed. Maggie lives in London with her husband and son.

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

•  We're Hiring!
•  Help Center

Creative Writing

•   All Departments
• 4 Documents
• 16 Researchers

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• Academia.edu Publishing
•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

• Find a course
• Undergraduate study
• Postgraduate study
• MPhil/PhD research
• Short courses
• Entry requirements
• Financial support

How to apply

• Come and meet us
• Evening study explained
• International Students
• Student Services
• Business Services
• Student life at Birkbeck
• The Birkbeck Experience
• Boost your career
• About Birkbeck
• Contact Birkbeck
• Faculties and Schools
• ReciteMe accessibility

Creative Writing and Contemporary Studies

Pathway of Creative Writing (MA)

Application options include:

Course Overview

The MA Creative Writing and Contemporary Studies is run by experienced and forward-thinking teachers who have been enabling dynamic groups of students to improve their creative work and develop as writers for nearly two decades. They are proud of a growing list of published and prizewinning authors whose work started life in their seminars.

If you have been writing creatively for a while and feel the need for professional support and feedback and the guidance of published authors and a cohort of like-minded people, then this course is for you.

The MA Creative Writing and Contemporary Studies will help you to develop the craft of writing in various genres to a professional level. You will also develop your critical-thinking skills exploring critical methods and debates on experimental literature, media, popular culture, technology and cultural development.

It will give you the opportunity to:

• gain a deepened awareness of literary forms and a practical understanding of the writer’s craft
• develop confidence, sensitivity and discernment in analysis of your own and others’ work
• combine both practice-based learning with specialism in contemporary literature, culture and criticism, as well as the development of your own creative writing projects
• place your own writing in the context of developments in contemporary poetry, screenwriting, fiction and creative non-fiction
• cultivate a greater practical knowledge and understanding of the markets for poetry, fiction, screenwriting and non-fiction.

Discover the career opportunities available by taking Creative Writing and Contemporary Studies (MA).

Key information and modules

Creative writing and contemporary studies ma: 1 year full-time, on campus, starting october 2024, creative writing and contemporary studies ma: 2 years part-time, on campus, starting october 2024, creative writing and contemporary studies: january start ma: 2 years part-time, on campus, starting january 2025.

Find another course:

• Birkbeck was ranked 2nd in the UK for its English Language and Literature research in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework.
• In addition to working with the established and award-winning writers who teach the degree, you will have contact with industry professionals, such as publishers and literary agents, who offer a series of platform discussions in the summer term. 
• The Mechanics' Institute Review,  MIROnline , is a forum for the most exciting new writing in short fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction selected from students on this course and beyond.
• We offer a number of bursaries for postgraduate students . 

Birkbeck makes all reasonable efforts to deliver educational services, modules and programmes of study as described on our website. In the event that there are material changes to our offering (for example, due to matters beyond our control), we will update applicant and student facing information as quickly as possible and offer alternatives to applicants, offer-holders and current students.

Entry Requirements

A second-class honours degree (2:2 or above, though this requirement may be waived if you can demonstrate exceptional talent), a personal statement (to be submitted with your application form) and a portfolio of prose writing of no more than 3000 words.

Your portfolio should be a section of a novel with a synopsis, a couple of short stories or a combination of the two. Please note that poetry, children’s fiction, journalism, screen- or playwriting are not appropriate submissions for this MA. Students are selected on the basis of their portfolio and statement, an interview (selected candidates only) and their degree.

Portfolio guidelines:

• Submit application.
• Wait up to 48 hours.
• Submit writing portfolio (Word or PDF) by logging into your MyBirkbeck profile, then going to the ‘Manage my application’ link and attaching the document.

Applications are reviewed on their individual merits and your professional qualifications and/or relevant work experience will be taken into consideration positively. We actively support and encourage applications from mature learners.

On your application form, please list all your relevant qualifications and experience, including those you expect to achieve.

Apply now  to secure your place. The earlier you apply, the sooner your application can be considered and you can enrol. You do not need to have completed your current qualification to start your application.

English language requirements

If English is not your first language or you have not previously studied in English, the requirement for this course is the equivalent of an International English Language Testing System (IELTS Academic Test) score of 6.5, with not less than 6.0 in each of the sub-tests.

If you don't meet the minimum IELTS requirement,  we offer pre-sessional English courses and foundation programmes  to help you improve your English language skills and get your place at Birkbeck.

Visit the International section of our website to find out more about our  English language entry requirements and relevant requirements by country .

Visa and funding requirements

If you are not from the UK and you do not already have residency here, you may need to apply for a visa.

The visa you apply for varies according to the length of your course:

• Courses of more than six months' duration: Student visa
• Courses of less than six months' duration: Standard Visitor visa

International students who require a Student visa should apply for our full-time courses as these qualify for Student visa sponsorship. If you are living in the UK on a Student visa, you will not be eligible to enrol as a student on Birkbeck's part-time courses (with the exception of some modules).

For full information, read our visa information for international students page .

Please also visit the international section of our website to find out more about relevant visa and funding requirements by country .

Please note students receiving US Federal Aid are only able to apply for in-person, on-campus programmes which will have no elements of online study.

Credits and accredited prior learning (APL)

If you have studied at university, you may have accumulated credits through the modules you studied. It may be possible to transfer these credits from your previous study to Birkbeck or another institution.

Creative Writing and Contemporary Studies: January start MA: 2 years part-time, on campus, starting in academic year 2024-25

Academic year 2024–25, starting january 2025.

Part-time home students: £5,400 per year Part-time international students : £9,915 per year

Creative Writing and Contemporary Studies MA: 1 year full-time or 2 years part-time, on campus, starting in academic year 2024-25

Academic year 2024–25, starting october 2024.

Part-time home students: £5,400 per year Full-time home students: £10,800 per year Part-time international students : £9,915 per year Full-time international students: £19,830 per year

Students are charged a tuition fee in each year of their programme. Tuition fees for students continuing on their programme in following years may be subject to annual inflationary increases. For more information, please see the  College Fees Policy .

Discover the financial support available to you to help with your studies at Birkbeck.

International scholarships

We provide a range of scholarships for eligible international students, including our Global Future Scholarship. Discover if you are eligible for a scholarship .

At Birkbeck, most of our courses are taught in the evening and all of our teaching is designed to support students who are juggling evening study with work and other commitments. We actively encourage innovative and engaging ways of teaching, to ensure our students have the best learning experience.

Teaching may include formal lectures, seminars, and practical classes and tutorials. Formal lectures are used in most degree programmes to give an overview of a particular field of study. They aim to provide the stimulus and the starting point for deeper exploration of the subject during your own personal reading. Seminars give you the chance to explore a specific aspect of your subject in depth and to discuss and exchange ideas with fellow students. They typically require preparatory study.

In addition, you will have access to pastoral support via a named Personal Tutor.

Methods of teaching on this course

Lectures, seminars and writing workshops, with regular one-to-one tutorials throughout the year.

Key teaching staff on this course

Staff who may teach on this MA include:

• Julia Bell , Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing
• Dr Mark Blacklock , Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary English
• Dr Caroline Edwards , Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature
• Dr Grace Halden , Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature
• Dr Steve Willey , Lecturer in Creative and Critical Writing
• Luke Williams , Lecturer in Creative Writing

Teaching hours

Our evening hours are normally between 6pm and 9pm (6-7.30pm and 7.30-9pm). Some programmes also offer teaching during the day and this will be clearly signposted to you where it is available.

On our taught courses, you will have scheduled teaching and study sessions each year. Scheduled teaching sessions may include lectures, seminars, workshops or laboratory work. Depending on the modules you take, you may also have additional scheduled academic activities, such as tutorials, dissertation supervision, practical classes, visits and field trips. On our taught courses, the actual amount of time you spend in the classroom and in contact with your lecturers will depend on your course, the option modules you select and when you undertake your final-year project (if applicable).

Alongside your contact hours, you will also undertake assessment activities and independent learning outside of class. The amount of time you need to allocate to study both for taught sessions (this might include online sessions and/or in-person sessions) and personal study will depend on how much you are studying during the year and whether you are studying full time or part time.

Birkbeck’s courses are made up of modules and allocated ‘credit’. One credit is equivalent to ten hours of learning time. Modules are usually in 15, 30 or 60 credit units. A 15-credit module will mean around 150 hours of learning, including taught sessions and independent study or group work. This is spread out over the whole period of that module and includes the time you spend on any assessments, including in examinations, preparing and writing assessments or engaged in practical work as well as any study support sessions to help you in your learning.

On our distance-learning and blended-learning courses, discussion, collaboration and interaction with your lecturers and fellow students is encouraged and enabled through various learning technologies.

Timetables are usually available from September onwards and you can access your personalised timetable via your My Birkbeck Profile online (if you have been invited to enrol).

Indicative class size

Class sizes vary, depending on your course, the module you are undertaking, and the method of teaching. For example, lectures are presented to larger groups, whereas seminars usually consist of small, interactive groups led by a tutor.

Independent learning

On our taught courses, much of your time outside of class will be spent on self-directed, independent learning, including preparing for classes and following up afterwards. This will usually include, but is not limited to, reading books and journal articles, undertaking research, working on coursework and assignments, and preparing for presentations and assessments.

Independent learning is absolutely vital to your success as a student. Everyone is different, and the study time required varies topic by topic, but, as a guide, expect to schedule up to five hours of self-study for each hour of teaching.

Study skills and additional support

Birkbeck offers study and learning support to undergraduate and postgraduate students to help them succeed. Our Learning Development Service can help you in the following areas:

• academic skills (including planning your workload, research, writing, exam preparation and writing a dissertation)
• written English (including structure, punctuation and grammar)
• numerical skills (basic mathematics and statistics).

Our Disability and Dyslexia Service can support you if you have additional learning needs resulting from a disability or from dyslexia.

Our Counselling Service can support you if you are struggling with emotional or psychological difficulties during your studies.

Our Mental Health Advisory Service can support you if you are experiencing short- or long-term mental health difficulties during your studies.

Assessment is an integral part of your university studies and usually consists of a combination of coursework and examinations, although this will vary from course to course - on some of our courses, assessment is entirely by coursework. The methods of assessment on this course are specified below under 'Methods of assessment on this course'. You will need to allow time to complete coursework and prepare for exams.

Where a course has unseen written examinations, these may be held termly, but, on the majority of our courses, exams are usually taken in the Summer term, during May to June. Exams may be held at other times of the year as well. In most cases, exams are held during the day on a weekday - if you have daytime commitments, you will need to make arrangements for daytime attendance - but some exams are held in the evening. Exam timetables are published online.

Find out more about assessment at Birkbeck, including guidance on assessment, feedback and our assessment offences policy.

Methods of assessment on this course

Assessment depends on the modules taken, but includes coursework and a 15,000-word dissertation, plus an unassessed reflective learning notebook.

Careers and employability

On successful completion of this MA Creative Writing and Contemporary Studies, you will have developed a set of valuable attributes, including:

• the ability to use language more confidently, precisely and imaginatively
• independent research skills
• the ability to convey your ideas and build an effective argument
• the ability to analyse and process complex ideas.

You will find MA Creative Writing and Contemporary Studies graduates progressing in career paths in:

• performing arts
• advertising
• public relations
• game design
• the civil service and business roles.

We offer a comprehensive careers service - Careers and Enterprise - your career partner during your time at Birkbeck and beyond. At every stage of your career journey, we empower you to take ownership of your future, helping you to make the connection between your experience, education and future ambitions.

You apply directly to Birkbeck for this course, using the online application link.

You will need to prove your identity when you apply - read more about suitable forms of identification .

Course specific deadlines and information.

You must also ensure you submit with your application form the following:

• a personal statement which outlines why you wish to study this course
• two professional or academic references
• a sample of creative writing (this can be a piece of fiction, a collection of poetry or a script), up to 1500 words
• a sample of critical writing about a literary text, up to 1500 words.

Students are selected on the basis of their writing samples, statement, an interview and their degree. Application guidelines: 

• Submit application
• Wait up to 48 hours
• Submit your samples of writing (Word or PDF, clearly marked with your name, and with page numbers) by logging into your MyBirkbeck profile, then going to the 'Manage my application' link and attaching the document

When to apply

You are strongly advised to apply now, to ensure there are still places on your chosen course and to give you enough time to complete the admissions process, to arrange funding and to enrol.

You don't need to complete your current programme of study before you apply - Birkbeck can offer you a place that is conditional on your results.

You will also receive information about subject-specific induction sessions over the summer.

Help and advice with your application

Get all the information you need about the application, admission and enrolment process at Birkbeck.

Our online personal statement tool will guide you through every step of writing the personal statement part of your application.

Apply for your course

Apply for your course using the apply now button in the key information section .

Course structure

Course structure listing, course structure and modules for creative writing and contemporary studies: january start ma: 2 years part-time, on campus, starting january 2025.

You must complete modules worth a total of 180 credits, consisting of:

• four compulsory modules (30 credits each)
• a 15,000-word dissertation (60 credits).

Please note: the 2025 January- start route offers different modules to the October-start route due to revisions in the programme.

Compulsory modules

• Theorising the Contemporary, Contemporary Theorising
• Writing the Planet
• Writing The Self
• Writing Workshop

MA Creative Writing and Contemporary Studies dissertation

• Dissertation MA Creative Writing

Course structure and modules for Creative Writing and Contemporary Studies MA: 1 year full-time or 2 years part-time, on campus, starting October 2024

Please note: there are some minor differences between modules we offer on the October- and January-start courses.

• Creative Non-Fiction