Welcome to CREW103
Creative Writing
This course seeks to enable your development as a writer through the discussion of core issues in Creative Writing and detailed critical engagement with your own and others’ work. Throughout the course, a series of lectures will offer insight into creative writing, and the seminars and workshops will develop your own writing skills and practice. These lectures are combined with workshops in which new work is developed and refined through a number of different strategies. As well as engaging with exercises set in class, students are expected to use ideas and issues raised to develop their own independent creative work. CREW103 is split into two sections.
What you will study
Term 1: Introduction to Fiction and Poetry
For the first five weeks of term one, lectures will explore the basics of writing fiction, discussing elements such as plot construction and character development. From week seven you will be introduced to aspects of writing poetry such as poetic form and free verse.
Term one seminars will often respond to the lectures and draw on writing prompts, discussion and exercises to generate new writing. You will be encouraged to experiment and write both fiction and poetry. You will be introduced to the key skills such as giving feedback, redrafting and writing reflectively. You will build up a portfolio of new pieces of writing and work towards making a proposal for your term two project (see assessment 1).
​
Term 2: More introductions – poetry, scripts and practice-based lectures
The first half of term two will continue exploring poetry, but will also examine writing for graphic novels, new media, radio, screen and the theatre. The rest of the term will also see lecturers bringing their own creative practice to the fore, so that students are given a window into the different strategies that professional writers use for their own creative writing (in a variety of literary forms). The term will also feature a special lectures by distinguished visiting professors Paul Muldoon and Benoit Peeters.
In the seminars you will have an opportunity to practice script writing, and then you will begin to develop your own writing project (see assessment 2). Seminars should have developed a rhythm whereby students submit work on Moodle, annotate responses and bring their feedback to workshops for discussion and feedback.
​
​
Term 3: Advanced Practice
This term will see further exploration of different media such as short films. There will be lectures building upon previous introductory sessions, and making connections between different forms of writing will be encourgaed. Professor Paul Muldoon will also return to give a second lecture.
Your creative work will be building up to the final submission of your creative portfolio and reflection.
How is it assessed?
100% Coursework
Assessment Details:
​
Assessment 1- Due in Week 11
1000 Word Portfolio (12%)
500 Word Annotated Bibliography (4%)
500 Word Proposal (4%)
​
Assessment 2- Due in Week 25
4000 Word Portfolio (72%)
1000 Word Reflection (8%)
​
Students are asked to create a portfolio of their work throughout the year. This work includes fiction and poetry. Themes and ideas are generated through seminar tasks, and writing is developed through critical and creative critiques with peers. Feedback is received after the first assessment to help students improve and develop their work for the final portfolio, to be submitted in Week 25.
Students are asked to write reflective essays to consider their development throughout the writing process. The reflective essay should discuss the aim of a portfolio, if this has been achieved and how, perhaps through the engagement of seminar critique and further reading.
​
​
How is it taught?
There are two 1-hour lectures and a 1-hour seminar per week.
​
Seminars are forums for discussion, a large part of them is about critiquing your own work and the work of others. Students are also invited to submit work on a regular basis to the online learning environment where it can be read and reviewed by their seminar group. Click here to find out more.
All our lecturers are world-renowned researchers and respected academics. The department ranks highly in the TEF (Teaching Excellence Framework) every year. Our Creative Writing lecturers are all practicing and successful in their own fields of publication.
The following are just some of the staff members who teach on the module.
​
​
Paul delivers lectures on how to write poetry and discusses his own work and inspiration. He has published four books of poetry and has won numerous awards and prizes for his work. Paul also works as a broadcaster, mainly for the BBC. He writes and presents radio dramas, documentaries, literary adaptations and features.
Professor Paul Farley
Dr Zoe Lambert
Zoe delivers lectures on a range of topics, from the process of writing and editing, to political fiction. Zoe has published numerous collections of short stories and often gives readings and lectures at events and literary festivals.
Tajinder Singh Hayer
Taj delivers lectures on how to write for the theatre, film and TV. Taj is a successful writer with an interest in British Asian subject matter and the genres of SF, fantasy and horror (with a particular interest in the post-apocalyptic subgenre).
Dr Eoghan Walls
Eoghan delivers lectures on aspects of poetry such as meaning, language and genre. He also teaches on editing work and completing your portfolio. He has been shortlisted and has won many poetry prizes. His first collection of poems was published in 2011.
​
Guest Lecturer
What our students say...
Professor Paul Muldoon is an distinguished visiting professor to the Department. He has published over thirty collections of poetry and has won both the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T.S Eliot Prize. He has held posts at both Oxford University and Princeton University and has served as poetry editor at The New Yorker.
​
The Guardian cites him as "among the few significant poets of our half-century."
"The most valuable thing was receiving feedback from my class mates on the work I submitted. It helped my writing grow."
"Feedback sessions were very constructive, and enabled me to make changes to my work, for the better."
"The screenwriting lectures were the most enjoyable of all."
"I think it works well as an introduction to the practice of creative writing, showing exactly what we need to do to grow as writers and helping us try out new things so we can find out exactly what our strengths are."
"The tutor I had for seminars gave excellent feedback and was always willing to help in person and via email. The lecturers were the most helpful out of any of my modules, offering to meet out of hours to discuss work."
"Seminars are always well led, engaging and inspiring."
"I benefited from the wide variety of topics taught in the lectures."