English Literature with Creative Writing

**About This Course**

It begins – has always begun – with a blank page, from stretched goatskin to flickering, ticking cursor. What will you say? How will you press the sound of your voice against that page? Can you pin your ideas with words? A quill presses into skin – punctures – fills – the pale feather blushes with iridescent colours – now subtle, now searing. Bleed a filigree of poetry. Life writing. Cut and paste characters, narrative perspectives – would she tell it like that? Can we trust him, this narrator with a dazzle of quicksilver for a tongue? Their story’s all a fiction. Lie still impeccably. Make them talk in euphemism – script a sculpture of stylised slang – slip subtext under the reader’s very nose. In a hundred and forty characters. Jump cut here – line break – make it up. Rewrite it all, in another tense, adding suspense. A crisp flurry of imagery. Return to the figurative. Turn the page – all yours – what will you write?

**Overview**

‘Good readers make good writers’ is the ethos of this course. You develop your craft as a writer under the supervision of our world-renowned novelists, poets and playwrights while benefitting from our first-class literature teaching. Your creative and literary training enhance one another. You’re able to draw on the wealth of literature you’ve been reading to inspire your writing, and your understanding of how literature works is deepened by writing it yourself.

The teaching of creative writing in the UK began at UEA nearly fifty years ago, and we are still widely seen as the home of creative writing in this country.

You will be studying at a university rich in famous creative writing alumni, including Booker Prize winner Ian McEwan and Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro. The writers and critics of the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing are at the cutting edge of their fields – that’s why in the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF2014), UEA was ranked joint 10th in the UK for the quality of its research in English Language and Literature (Times Higher REF 2014 Analysis).

Whatever kind of writing you love the most, you’ll develop it over the course of your degree by working closely with our many practising writers in seminars and workshops. In your study of English literature, you’ve the chance to discover a wealth of writers from Chaucer to the present day – from medieval romance via Shakespeare, Milton, Austen, the Brontës, and James Joyce, to novelists and poets who are still writing now.

Norwich is an extraordinary place in which to be a writer. It’s England’s first UNESCO City of Literature, awarded in recognition of the city’s vivid literary heritage and vibrant contemporary writing scene. You’ll immerse yourself in this community, and you might find yourself sharing your work with a packed audience of students and professional writers at UEA Live, or hearing readings from dozens of internationally leading literary figures.

We say that UEA is the place where literature lives – when you join the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, you’ll join a unique and supportive community of critics, writers, and drama practitioners, who bring literature to life every day.

**Disclaimer**

Course details are subject to change. You should always confirm the details on the provider's website: **www.uea.ac.uk**