Publishing Links
The record of publications, productions and prizes achieved by UEA's students after graduation is unparalleled in the UK and comparable with the most prominent courses internationally, as may be seen by clicking on the buttons on the right for Alumni and Prizewinners. For most, publication begins with our annual anthology of student work, published by EggBox and distributed nationally, with launch events in London and Norwich. In addition, each of our graduating students is showcased on our website, www.newwriting.net.
Although the MA in Creative Writing is not primarily commercial in outlook, we maintain close contacts with literary agents, publishers, and the professional drama production industries. Each of the MA in Creative Writing strands incorporates a programme of masterclasses and seminars by industry professionals, and in 2005 the Scriptwriting strand was industry-accredited by Creative Skillset, the Sector Skills Training Council for the UK audio-visual industries.
The Prose Fiction strand of the MA benefits from the agent and publisher visits detailed below, and has in recent years hosted seminars by novelists such as Martin Amis, Nick Hornby, Salman Rushdie, Jeanette Winterson and Ali Smith. Among the writers to have given masterclasses to the Biography and Creative Non-Fiction MA are Kate Summerscale, Alexander Masters, Richard Holmes, Philip Hoare and William Fiennes. The Poetry strand of the MA has welcomed visiting speakers such as John Burnside, Sean O'Brien, Paul Farley, David Harsent, Jo Shapcott, Alice Oswald and Don Paterson.
The Scriptwriting strand enjoys longstanding relationships with the BBC Writersroom, the Curtis Brown agency, the Menagerie Theatre Company in Cambridge, and incorporates into its programme an extensive series of masterclasses from visitors such as dramatists David Hare and Christopher Hampton, BBC Radio Commissioner Caroline Raphael, former National Theatre literary manager Jack Bradley, Executive Producer of Digital Shorts Samantha Burton, screenwriter Christopher Mander, and the literary manger of High Tide Literary Festival, Rob Drummer.
The association of our programme with the David Higham and Curtis Brown literary agencies is longstanding and both are generous in their support of our students. David Higham Associates provides a substantial annual bursary, while Curtis Brown awards an annual prize to the best student on the Prose Fiction strand of the MA. In 2009 the Booker Foundation inaugurated a significant Scholarship worth up to £25,000 to the recipient, which was awarded in its first year to D.W. Wilson, who went on to win the BBC National Short Story Award soon after graduating. In 2012 the publishing house Corsair endowed an annual bursary for a student undertaking the Prose Fiction MA who is aged 25 or younger at the start of the academic year.