Program Overview

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

Overview

The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing is a one-year program that offers aspiring and published writers a dynamic live-online experience, blending engaging online classes with monthly workshops at the historic childhood home of Oscar Wilde. The program examines the process and practice of producing prose fiction, providing tuition and advice to complete either a novel or a short story collection.

Category

• Liberal Arts

Start Month

• September / January

Level

• Postgraduate

Application Method

• Direct

Fees (Non-EU Nationals)

• €10000

Duration

• 1 Year (Full-time)

Fees (EU Nationals)

• €10000

Location

• Live Online

Course Detail

The program develops a broad spectrum of transferable skills, including advanced and adaptable writing techniques, informed responsiveness to critical and editorial commentary, self-management and organizational competencies, and a high level of expertise in understanding and locating creative work within a historical and critical context. These skills are applicable not only in careers that draw directly on the ability to write creatively but also in a wide array of related business, cultural and social activities such as keeping a web page, blogging, advocacy and grant writing, criticism and commentary.

Course Schedule

Students will study eight taught modules, plus a 15,000-word writing project.

• Imagination and storytelling
• Writing workshop 1: the novel
• Writing workshop 1: the short story
• The writer as critic
• The craft of creative writing
• The business of writing and publishing
• Writing workshop 2: the novel
• Writing workshop 2: the short story
• Masterclass in fiction writing
• Creative writing project

Course Requirements

An honours bachelor's degree in a cognate discipline may be an advantage but is not a necessity for entry to the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. The principal requirements for admission to the program are a demonstration of sufficient interest in the activity of creative writing and furnishing evidence of an ability to undertake and benefit from a course of master’s level study and tuition in creative writing.

In addition to completing an application online, applicants are asked to upload a 500-word personal statement of their interest in undertaking the course and a 3,000-word portfolio of their prose writing. The portfolio may consist of a single piece of writing or a collection of up to four samples.

English Language Requirement

An English language certificate may also be required, please review our English language policy.

Course Skills

Along with the academic knowledge students receive throughout their program, they will also acquire and develop transferable career skills from their degree discipline.

• Advanced written and academic research capabilities
• Strong attention to detail
• Creativity
• Self-management and organisational competencies
• Critical thinking and editorial commentary

Instructors

• Nessa O’Mahony: Nessa recently published her first novel, The Branchman. She teaches on the MFA’s craft of creative writing module. Nessa O’Mahony is a Dublin-born poet. She has published four books of poetry – Bar Talk (1999), Trapping a Ghost (2005), In Sight of Home (2009) and Her Father’s Daughter (Salmon 2014). A fifth, The Hollow Woman and the Island, is published by Salmon Poetry in May 2019. She co-edited with Paul Munden Metamorphic: 21st century poets respond to Ovid (Recent Work Press 2017).
• Carlo Gébler: Carlo teaches the novel workshop on the MFA in Creative Writing Practice. Carlo Gébler was born in Dublin in 1954. His most recent publications (all from New Island) are The Projectionist, The Story of Ernest Gébler, The Wing Orderly’s Tales, a collection of stories told by a prison orderly, and The Innocent of Falkland Road, a novel set in London in the 1960s. Carlo Gébler was a teacher in HMP Maze from 1991 – 1997, writer-in-residence in HMP Maghaberry, Co. Antrim from 1997 to 2015 and now works occasionally in Hydebank College (formerly Hydebank YOC) and HMP Magilligan. He also teaches on the MPhil in Creative Writing in the Oscar Wilde Centre for Irish Writing at Trinity College Dublin, and is a member of Aosdana.
• Chris Binchy: Chris teaches the novel workshop on the MFA in Creative Writing. Chris Binchy is the author of four novels. He has received bursaries from the Irish Arts Council and Dublin City Council. In 2012 he was writer-in-residence for Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown Council. He was Visiting Writer Fellow in Trinity College Dublin in 2013 and in 2015 held the Writer Fellowship at University College Dublin.