Program Overview

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Explore the urge to create and build new worlds, to share language and stories with others. On our course you will reflect on how literature shapes, and is shaped by the world, as well as honing the craft of writing through a multi-genre approach. Drawing on key texts and ideas, you’ll develop critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills that will help you to make your own mark. To develop your own creative writing, we offer an unusual approach to the practice of writing, combing innovative and traditional methods in order to develop your writing skills and abilities to judge your work critically, while expanding your knowledge across different modes and genres. On our four-year MLitSt Literature and Creative Writing, you will be part of an interdisciplinary department and well-established home to practising poets, dramatists, novelists and critics. You have the flexibility to choose from a wide range of optional modules across different topics and areas of specialism, including;

• Writing an independent creative project
• Early Modern (16th and 17th century) literature
• Exploring the psychological foundations of creativity in relation to myth
• United States, Caribbean and Transatlantic literature
• Writing for radio and playwriting
• Poetic, contemporary and avant-garde and political writing

In your fourth year, as a post-graduate student, you will be able to choose from the following masters level modules in literature and creative writing;

• Conducting research into Shakespeare
• Development of a novel plan, from research and concept-development, to plotting, character and structure
• Study of rare and antiquated books
• Poetic practice across experimental writing in poetry from the performative to the visual

At Essex we believe in radical, challenging and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of literature and while we take note of conventions, we’re not bound by them. We have nurtured a long tradition of distinguished writers whose work has shaped literature as we know it today, from past giants such as the American poets Robert Lowell and Ted Berrigan, to contemporary writers such as mythographer and novelist Dame Marina Warner, and Booker Prize winner Ben Okri. Our course offers a varied, flexible and distinctive curriculum, focused on developing your abilities as a writer, while allowing you to take options from the other courses within our Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies including literature, filmmaking, journalism and drama. Why we're great.

• Achieve a masters level qualification with this four-year course variant
• Join a diverse network of distinguished alumni, including Booker Prize and Pulitzer Prize winners
• Our course offers a varied, flexible and distinctive curriculum, focused on developing your abilities as a writer

Our expert staff

At Essex, we have an impressive literary legacy. Our history comprises staff (and students) who have been Nobel Prize winners, Booker Prize winners, and Pulitzer Prize winners. Our Department are committed to unlocking creative personal responses to literature. This distinctive environment is possible because we are a community of award-winning novelists, poets and playwrights, as well as leading literature specialists. Our academic staff specialise in a range of areas including modernism, comparative and world literature, Shakespeare, the Renaissance, travel writing, nature writing, translated literature, cultural geography, Irish and Scottish writing, U.S. and Caribbean literature, and the history of reading.

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Specialist facilities

• Access the University’s Media Centre, equipped with state-of-the-art studios, cameras, audio and lighting equipment, and an industry-standard editing suite
• Write for our student magazine Rebel or host a radio show
• Meet fellow readers at the student-run Literature Society or at the department’s Myth Reading Group
• View classic films at weekly film screenings in our dedicated 120-seat film theatre
• Hear writers talk about their craft and learn from leading literature specialists at regular talks and readings
• Improve your playwriting skills at our Lakeside Theatre Writers workshops
• Our Research Laboratory allows you to collaborate with professionals, improvising and experimenting with new work which is being tried and tested

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Your future

A good literature degree opens many doors and our students have gone on to work in a number of careers such as writers, and others are now established as scholars, university lecturers, teachers, publishers, publishers’ editors, journalists, arts administrators, theatre artistic directors, drama advisers, and translators. Our recent graduates have gone on to work in a wide range of desirable roles including:

• Theatre
• Journalism and broadcasting
• The Civil Service
• Marketing
• Museum and library work
• Commerce and finance
• Teaching

And many of our students have gone on to successfully publish their work, notable recent alumni including:

• Ida Løkås, who won a literary prize in Norway for The Beauty That Flows Past, securing a book deal
• Alexia Casale, whose novel Bone Dragon was published by Faber & Faber and subsequently featured on both the Young Adult Books of the Year 2013 list for The Financial Times, and The Independent’s Books of the year 2013: Children
• Elaine Ewart, recent graduate from our MA Wild Writing, placed second in the New Welsh Writing Awards 2015
• Patricia Borlenghi, the founder of Patrician Press, which has published works by a number of our alumni
• Simon Everett, owners and editor of Muscaliet Press
• Petra Mcqueen, who has written for The Guardian and runs creative writing courses

We also work with the university's Student Development Team to help you find out about further work experience, internships, placements, and voluntary opportunities.