)
Literature and Creative Writing at UEA
Find out more about studying Literature and Creative Writing at UEA, and browse our other courses.
Find out moreMA Creative Writing with a Placement Year
Key details
- Attendance
- Full Time
- Award
- Degree of Master of Arts
- Course Length
- 2 years
- Course Start Date
- January 2027
Course options
Other Start Dates
Gain a competitive edge with a placement year
This course is also available with an integrated placement year, giving you the opportunity to gain valuable UK industry experience alongside your master's degree
Other Start Dates
101-150 QS Rank
Worldwide for English Language and Literature
QS World University Rankings by Subject 2024Course Overview
Why MA Creative Writing with a Placement Year at UEA?
Become a versatile, future-focused writer across genres, platforms, and emerging technologies. Join a world-leading creative writing community.
Why choose UEA
- World-leading heritage: Benefit from over 50 years of pioneering creative writing teaching
- Write and experiment: Develop your work across novels, scripts, podcasts, and more in workshops led by practising writers
- Digital and multimodal focus: Explore how technology is reshaping writing through podcasts, games, and immersive platforms
What is MA Creative Writing with a Placement Year?
On this course, you’ll develop your writing across prose, poetry, script, and hybrid forms. You'll experiment creatively, exploring diverse genres and modes of expression to discover and hone your creative voice.
You’ll also be introduced to digital and multimodal writing, exploring new possibilities for contemporary storytelling and audience engagement. The course builds your confidence through workshops, critical engagement, and professional insight, preparing you for writing careers across evolving creative industries. You’ll also take part in a placement year, gaining valuable professional experience alongside your studies.
Based in the historic city of Norwich, England’s first UNESCO City of Literature, you’ll join a thriving writing community and literary events culture. From attending readings at UEA Live(opens in a new window) and the National Centre for Writing(opens in a new window) to masterclasses with leading authors and publishers, the MA will ready you to step into your own as a writer.
Placement Year
This course incorporates an integrated placement year. This gives you the opportunity to gain valuable UK industry experience as part of your Master's.
As part of your degree, you'll complete an employability programme designed to prepare you for the UK workplace and support you in securing a placement opportunity.
During the placement year, you'll either undertake an industry placement or complete three employer-led industry projects with different UK organisations. You’ll apply your knowledge in a professional setting, gain practical UK experience, and enhance your career prospects after graduation.
You'll lead the search for your own placement, supported by employability workshops, one-to-one coaching, and guidance from our specialist placement partner.
If you’re unable to secure a placement, you'll complete three employer-led industry projects, working with organisations across a range of UK sectors
Find out more at Postgraduate Placement Year.
Careers
Career Pathways
With a MA Creative Writing degree, you could launch a career as a:
- Freelance Writer: Create content such as novels, scripts, articles, or specialist writing for clients
- Games Writer: Develop stories, dialogue, and narratives for video games and interactive media
- Editor: Work in publishing to shape, refine, and commission new writing
- Communications Officer: Create content for marketing, PR, and public-facing campaigns
- Curator: Work in galleries, libraries, archives, or museums to manage and interpret cultural collections
Career Support
Throughout the course, you’ll carefully hone a skillset that will prepare you for a host of writing-based professions: you’ll learn to express your creativity in ways that stand out and to carefully shape language into compelling stories. You’ll also develop an understanding of how readers engage with writing across different media and platforms. You’ll hone strong collaborative skills in the workshop environment and will receive expert guidance from tutors who are published and practicing writers, with experience in the contemporary writing industries. In addition, workshops and masterclasses with visiting writers and publishing industry professionals will provide invaluable industry insight and networking opportunities. You’ll also benefit from the support of UEA’s Career Central(opens in a new window) and events like Working with Words(opens in a new window).
After the Course
You’ll complete the course with a strong sense of your writerly identity and creative abilities, which might lead you to pursue publishing opportunities through print or digital channels or collaborative creative work in industries such as film, TV, theatre, games design, or podcasting. You might also wish to embark on another professional pathway where you’ll put your writing skills to good use – as a professional writer working in the commercial sector, for instance, or as a media or publishing professional.
Study and Modules
Structure
You'll begin with a creative writing workshop in which you'll explore a range of forms of writing, from screenwriting and prose fiction to poetry, establishing competency and confidence across them. You’ll also push the boundaries of established forms, experimenting with hybrid writing and the new modes of expression it facilitates.
Alongside this module, you'll study the ways digital technology is reshaping writing. This may in turn inspire your creative workshop, leading you to work with multimodal forms or interactive narratives. By the end of the module, you'll have a firm sense of the exciting potential of writing for new technologies and have begun to incorporate that potential into your writer’s toolkit.
You'll then take a second creative writing workshop where you'll continue to develop your craft, confidence and professionalism by exploring and experimenting with genres, from historical to speculative writing. By the end of the module, you might decide to specialise in a single form or genre or continue to pursue versatility and hybrid experimentation.
Alongside this, you'll choose from a rich range of optional modules across the school and faculty. These draw especially on the wealth of knowledge and experience of the school's literary critics and currently include modules on writing and play (which encourages your own playful experiments in writing), adaptation, and how writing is inspired by place. These modules will help put your own writing into context and provide you with touchstones for your own creations.
You'll also undertake the creative writing dissertation, the exciting culmination of your MA. Supported by a member of our teaching team, you'll develop a substantial creative project that will become your calling card as a writer and help launch the next phase of your career.
In addition, you'll complete an Employability Skills module to prepare for your placement year through workshops, practical career development activities and personalised support. You'll develop skills in areas such as CV writing, interview techniques and networking.
The module is assessed on a pass/fail basis, and successful completion is required to progress to the placement year.
Compulsory Modules
Optional A Modules
(Credits: 20)Important Information
Whilst the University will make every effort to offer the modules listed, changes may sometimes be made arising from the annual monitoring, review and update of modules. Where this activity leads to significant (but not minor) changes to programmes and their constituent modules, the University will endeavour to consult with students and others. It is also possible that the University may not be able to offer a module for reasons outside of its control, such as the illness of a member of staff. In some cases optional modules can have limited places available and so you may be asked to make additional module choices in the event you do not gain a place on your first choice. Where this is the case, the University will inform students.
Structure
You'll complete a 60-credit placement module, giving you the opportunity to gain relevant professional experience. You'll focus on securing a placement with support from dedicated employability specialists and a series of in-person workshops designed to help you develop your career planning and reflect on your progress. If you're unable to secure a placement, you'll complete three employer-led industry projects with different organisations.
The module is assessed on a pass/fail basis through a portfolio documenting your placement search and a reflective report on your placement or industry project experience. By the end of the module, you'll have developed valuable professional skills, increased your understanding of your chosen sector, strengthened your CV and professional network, and enhanced your confidence for the next stage of your career.
Compulsory Modules
Important Information
Whilst the University will make every effort to offer the modules listed, changes may sometimes be made arising from the annual monitoring, review and update of modules. Where this activity leads to significant (but not minor) changes to programmes and their constituent modules, the University will endeavour to consult with students and others. It is also possible that the University may not be able to offer a module for reasons outside of its control, such as the illness of a member of staff. In some cases optional modules can have limited places available and so you may be asked to make additional module choices in the event you do not gain a place on your first choice. Where this is the case, the University will inform students.
:focus(2218x870:2219x871))
Teaching and Learning, and Assessment
Teaching and Learning
In lectures, you’ll be introduced to texts, techniques and key concepts by expert creative writers and literary critics, while seminars will give you a space to discuss aspects of writerly craft and technique. In workshops guided by practising writers, you'll experiment with writing across genres and forms, giving and receiving constructive feedback on work-in-progress. You’ll also meet with your lecturers for one-to-one tutorials to discuss your work and receive mentorship as you develop your craft and confidence. Meanwhile, masterclasses and talks by visiting writers and industry professionals will give you even more hands-on insight into the business of writing.
Outside the classroom, you’ll spend your time drafting and revising creative work, as well as completing preparatory reading and research for your modules and projects. You may also draw inspiration from UEA’s British Archive for Contemporary Writing(opens in a new window) and its fascinating writers’ papers, or the Sainsbury Centre(opens in a new window), our world-renowned on-campus museum.
Assessment
You’ll build a varied writing portfolio that reflects your growing craft and versatility. For each of your modules, you’ll submit coursework for assessment. You'll be assessed on creative work developed in your workshop modules, demonstrating your evolving skills. You'll also be assessed on work created for emerging platforms and multimodal forms. In your option module, you might be assessed on critical or creative responses to the module’s focus. Your dissertation will showcase your creative strengths and mark the culmination of your MA journey – and it might form the basis for a longer work.
Entry Requirements
- This course is open to
UK and International fee-paying students. Choose UK or International above to see relevant information. The entry point is in January each year.
- Typical UK Entry Requirements
Degree classification
Bachelors degree - 2.2
Degree Subject
Any subject
- Additional Entry Requirements
Candidates are required to submit a portfolio of writing for assessment with their application of 2500-3000 words in length. This could be part of a novel, creative non-fiction (such as memoir, travel writing or nature writing), script, poetry, a combination of short pieces from multiple forms, or a hybrid piece which combines forms together.
- Admissions Policy
Our Admissions Policy applies to the admissions of all postgraduate applicants.
- This course is open to
UK and International fee-paying students. Choose UK or International above to see relevant information. The entry point is in January each year.
- Typical International Entry Requirements
Degree classification
UK Bachelors degree - 2.2 or equivalent
Degree Subject
Any subject
- Additional Entry Requirements
Candidates are required to submit a portfolio of writing for assessment with their application of 2500-3000 words in length. This could be part of a novel, creative non-fiction (such as memoir, travel writing or nature writing), script, poetry, a combination of short pieces from multiple forms, or a hybrid piece which combines forms together.
- English Foreign Language
Applications from students whose first language is not English are welcome. We require evidence of proficiency in English (including writing, speaking, listening and reading):
-
IELTS: 6.5 overall (minimum 6.0 in each component).
We also accept a number of other English language tests. Review our English Language Equivalencies(opens in a new window) for a list of example qualifications that we may accept to meet this requirement.
Test dates should be within two years of the course start date.
If you do not meet the English language requirements for this course, our UEA International Study Centre offers a variety of English language programmes which are designed to help you develop the required English skills.
-
- Admissions Policy
Our Admissions Policy applies to the admissions of all postgraduate applicants.
)
Fees and Funding
Tuition fees for the Academic Year 2026/27 are:
-
UK Students: £11,200
-
International Students: £23,850
If you choose to study part-time, the fee per annum will be half the annual fee for that year, or a pro-rata fee for the module credit you are taking (only available for Home students).
If you choose to take this course with a placement year, your tuition fees for the first year will be as shown above. An additional fee of £3,500 will apply for the placement year (see our FAQs page for further details).
We estimate living expenses at £1,171 per month.
Further Information on tuition fees can be found here(opens in a new window).
If you choose to take this course with a placement year, your tuition fees for the first year will be as shown above. An additional fee of £3,500 will apply for the placement year (see our FAQs page for further details).
Scholarships and Bursaries
The University of East Anglia offers a range of Scholarships(opens in a new window); please click the link for eligibility, details of how to apply and closing dates.
Course Related Costs
Please see additional course fees for details of course-related costs.
How to Apply
How to apply
Applications for Postgraduate Taught programmes at the University of East Anglia should be made directly to the University.
To apply please use our online application form(opens in a new window).
Further information
If you would like to discuss your individual circumstances prior to applying, please do contact us:
Postgraduate Admissions Office
Tel: +44 (0)1603 591515
Email: admissions@uea.ac.uk(opens in a new window)
International candidates are also encouraged to access the International Students(opens in a new window) section of our website.