Manchester Metropolitan University campus

Arts & Humanities

MA Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University

Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom

Programme overview

Join a vibrant community of award-winning writers at the Manchester Writing School, home to over 100 published students and graduates. Our MA Creative Writing programme invites you to develop your voice, on campus in a UNESCO City of Literature, or as part of our global online community from anywhere in the world. Specialise in Novel, Poetry, Scriptwriting, Writing for Children and Young Adults, or Creative Non-Fiction, and work alongside internationally renowned writers, poets and scriptwriters.

Faculty: Faculty of Arts and Humanities  |  Department: School of English  |  Duration: 1 year full-time (campus); 2 years part-time (campus or online); You can begin studying in September or January  |  Study mode: full-time, part-time, online  |  Intake: January 2027  |  Location: Manchester, England, United Kingdom

What you will study

MA Creative Writing can be tailored to suit your writing preferences by following one of these specialist routes: Novel, including short fiction. Poetry. Modules core: Creative Dissertation, Reading 1, The Workshop; options: Contemporary Magazine Publishing, Literature in Translation, Poetry in Print, Reading 2, Teaching Creative Writing, The Industry, Writing About Relationships, Writing, Illustrating and Publishing Children's Books.

Career pathways

More than 100 of our students and graduates have found success in pathways such as publishing careers, launching first books, achieving publication in journals and magazines, winning writing awards, setting up small presses and anthologies, and seeing their work go into production and performance. Our alumni include winners of the Costa First Novel Award, Forward Poetry Prize and Yale Windham-Campbell Prize, and a long-listing for the Man Booker Prize.

Official programme page

Application information

Entry requirements

Application is by submission of an online form including a personal statement, and a sample of your own creative work. Your application should be tailored to one of our specialist routes: Novel, Poetry, Writing for Children & YA, Scriptwriting or Creative Non-Fiction. Please indicate at the top of your personal statement which specialist route you are applying for. You should use the rest of the statement to tell us a bit about yourself, give a good overview of your reading and writing interests, and a sense of what has led you to apply for our course and any ideas you have for what you’d like to write with us. Personal statements should be up to 500 words long. For the creative sample , applicants to the Novel, Children's & YA and Creative Non-Fiction routes should submit up to 2,000 words of prose; poetry applicants should submit up to 15 poems; and scriptwriting applicants should submit up to 15 minutes running time of script. The work submitted can be a complete piece, or an extract or a number of extracts from a longer work. We have intakes into the programme in September and January each year. For application deadlines, please see the 'How to Apply section'. In each application assessed we will be looking for evidence of: A very high standard of written English. Control of form, style and technique. Substantial reading of contemporary work within the relevant field with reference to specific texts and/or writers. Commitment to the craft of writing and willingness to engage with the editorial process of receiving feedback and redrafting work-in-progress. Experience of the development of writing skills through workshops, supervision, mentoring or previous study. Applicants whose first language is not English are required to produce evidence of English Language proficiency. Overseas applicants will require IELTS with an overall score of 6.5, with no sub-component below 5.5, or an equivalent accepted English qualification. Accepted English qualifications can be viewed here.

Domestic applicants: GBP 10,600 a year (2026/27). Full-time tuition fee per year Source

International applicants: GBP 21,000 a year (2026/27). Full-time tuition fee per year Source

Intake: January 2027

Duration: 1 year full-time (campus); 2 years part-time (campus or online); You can begin studying in September

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