Program Overview

BA Creative Writing and Modern Languages

Key Facts

• UCAS Tariff: 120 - 104
• Course duration: 4 years
• Available for September start 2025

Course Overview

The combination of Creative Writing and Modern Languages offers a broad curriculum that crosses the traditional boundaries of genre, form, function, culture, linguistics, film, and literature. This degree is based on our strongly held belief that in order to become a really great writer you need to be a good reader, whilst offering you the flexibility to develop as a writer across a range of creative modes.

Throughout the course, you will use your knowledge of literature and textual production in your own creative work, exploring the relationship between creative and critical practice.

In all years, you will typically have 5.5 hours of language work per week – choose from French, German, Spanish, and Italian.

Modules

Year 1

• Beginning Creative Writing Part 1 (WR11020, 20 credits)
• Beginning Creative Writing Part 2 (WR11120, 20 credits)
• Optional modules:
  • Academic Writing: Planning, Process, and Product (IC17720, 20 credits)
  • American Literature (EN11220, 20 credits)
  • Ancestral Voices (EN10220, 20 credits)
  • Critical Practice (EN11320, 20 credits)
  • Exploring German Cultural Identity (GE10920, 20 credits)
  • Hispanic Civilization (SP16120, 20 credits)
  • Interdisciplinary Approaches to Climate Change (EN19920, 20 credits)
  • Introduction to European Film (EL10520, 20 credits)
  • Introduction to French Studies (FR11120, 20 credits)
  • Introduction to Poetry (WL10420, 20 credits)
  • Language Awareness for TESOL (IC13420, 20 credits)
  • Language, Culture, and Identity in Europe (EL10820, 20 credits)
  • Literature and the Sea (WL11420, 20 credits)
  • Peering into Possibility: Speculative Fiction and the Now (WL11920, 20 credits)
  • Re-imagining Nineteenth-Century Literature (WL10120, 20 credits)
  • Study and Research Skills in Modern Languages (EL10020, 20 credits)
  • We Have Always Been Here: Queer Writing from Antiquity to the Present (WL10820, 20 credits)
  • French Language (Beginners) (FR11740, 40 credits)
  • French Language (Non-Beginners) (FR11940, 40 credits)
  • German Language (Beginners) (GE11740, 40 credits)
  • German Language (Non-Beginners) (GE11940, 40 credits)
  • Italian Language (Beginners) (IT11740, 40 credits)
  • Spanish Language (Beginners) (SP11740, 40 credits)
  • Spanish Language (Non-Beginners) (SP11940, 40 credits)

Year 2

• Literary Theory: Debates and Dialogues (EN20120, 20 credits)
• Optional modules:
  • French Language (Intermediate) (FR22140, 40 credits)
  • German Language (Intermediate) (GE22140, 40 credits)
  • Italian Language (Intermediate) (IT22140, 40 credits)
  • Spanish Language (Intermediate) (SP22140, 40 credits)
  • A Century in Crisis: 1790s to 1890s (WL20720, 20 credits)
  • Adventures with Poetry (WR22120, 20 credits)
  • Effective Academic and Professional Communication 1 (IC27720, 20 credits)
  • Short stories: Grit and Candour (WL20320, 20 credits)
  • Telling True Stories: ways of Writing Creative Non-Fiction (WR21120, 20 credits)
  • Writing Selves (WR20620, 20 credits)
  • 'The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne': Medieval Models of Literary Production (WL23120, 20 credits)
  • Contemporary Writing and Climate Crisis (EN21120, 20 credits)
  • Cuban Cinema of the Revolution: Crisis, National Identity and the Critique of Contemporary Society (SP27020, 20 credits)
  • Die Wende: Representations of Division and Unification in German Film (GE26020, 20 credits)
  • Gender in Modern and Contemporary French Culture (FR21020, 20 credits)
  • German-speaking Refugees from National Socialism in the UK (GE27220, 20 credits)
  • History, Film and Memory: Representing World Wars in French cinema (FR27820, 20 credits)
  • Literary Geographies (EN21020, 20 credits)
  • Literature and Climate in the Nineteenth Century (EN21220, 20 credits)
  • Literature since the '60s (EN22920, 20 credits)
  • Place and Self (EN22120, 20 credits)
  • Rethinking late 20th Century Italy (IT21020, 20 credits)
  • Self-Writing, 18th-21st Centuries (FR27020, 20 credits)
  • TESOL Approaches, Methods and Teaching Techniques (IC23420, 20 credits)
  • The Spanish Avant-Garde (SP20620, 20 credits)
  • Writing Women for the Public Stage (EN28720, 20 credits)

Year 4

• Optional modules:
  • Crisis Writing (WR31820, 20 credits)
  • Effective Academic and Professional Communication 2 (IC37820, 20 credits)
  • French Language (Advanced) (FR33440, 40 credits)
  • German Language (Advanced) (GE33440, 40 credits)
  • Italian Language (Advanced) (IT33440, 40 credits)
  • Literatures of Surveillance (WL35320, 20 credits)
  • Post-Colonial African Literature in English (EN38120, 20 credits)
  • Remix: Chaucer In The Then and Now (WL30620, 20 credits)
  • Spanish Language (Advanced) (SP33440, 40 credits)
  • TESOL Materials Development and Application of Technologies (IC33420, 20 credits)
  • Writing Crime Fiction (WR32420, 20 credits)
  • Writing Horror (WR31920, 20 credits)
  • Writing Music (WR32620, 20 credits)
  • Writing and Place (WR32120, 20 credits)
  • Ali Smith and 21st Century fiction(s) (EN33620, 20 credits)
  • Cuban Cinema of the Revolution: Crisis, National Identity and the Critique of Contemporary Society (SP37020, 20 credits)
  • Die Wende: Representations of Division and Unification in German Film (GE36120, 20 credits)
  • Gender in Modern and Contemporary French Culture (FR31020, 20 credits)
  • German-speaking Refugees from National Socialism in the UK (GE37220, 20 credits)
  • Haunting Texts (EN30820, 20 credits)
  • History, Film and Memory: Representing World Wars in French cinema (FR37820, 20 credits)
  • Reading Late 19th Century Literature (SP35120, 20 credits)
  • Reading Theory / Reading Text (EN30120, 20 credits)
  • Rethinking late 20th Century Italy (IT31020, 20 credits)
  • Self-writing, 18th-21st Centuries (FR37020, 20 credits)
  • The Mark of the Beast: Animals in Literature from the 1780s to the 1920s (EN31320, 20 credits)
  • Victorian Childhoods (EN30320, 20 credits)
  • Writing in the Margins: Twentieth-Century Welsh Poetry in English (EN30420, 20 credits)

Careers

Many of our graduates are successful writers in the fields of:

• Fiction
• Non-fiction
• Poetry
• Screen-writing
• Radio
• Theatre

Some of our graduates have discovered other successful careers in:

• Publishing
• Editing
• Journalism
• Marketing and Communications
• Teaching

Transferable Skills

Our degree will enable you to develop:

• The ability to express ideas and communicate information effectively in a broad range of contexts
• Outstanding skills in creating, forming, and manipulating the written word
• Evidence of your ability to be an effective problem-solver
• Excellent creative thinking, informed by critical rigour
• A proven ability to work both independently and as part of a team
• Excellent time-management and organisational skills, including the ability to meet deadlines
• Self-motivation and self-reliance and have the ability to develop appropriate and effective strategies
• Valuable research skills that are transdisciplinary and adaptable to any research context

Teaching and Learning

This degree is based on our strongly held belief that in order to become a really great writer you need to be a good reader, whilst offering you the flexibility to develop as a writer across a range of creative modes.

Throughout the course, you will use your knowledge of literature and textual production in your own creative work, exploring the relationship between creative and critical practice.

In all years, you will typically have 5.5 hours of language work per week – choose from French, German, Spanish, and Italian.

Typical Entry Requirements

• UCAS Tariff: 120 - 104
• A Levels: BBB-BCC
• GCSE requirements (minimum grade C/4): English or Welsh
• BTEC National Diploma: DDM-DMM
• International Baccalaureate: 30-28
• European Baccalaureate: 75%-65%
• English Language Requirements: See our Undergraduate English Language Requirements for this course. Pre-sessional English Programmes are also available for students who do not meet our English Language Requirements.

Country-Specific Entry Requirements

International students whose qualification is not listed on this page, can check our Country-Specific Entry Requirements for further information.

The University welcomes undergraduate applications from students studying the Access to Higher Education Diploma or T-level qualifications, provided that relevant subject content and learning outcomes are met. We are not able to accept Access to Higher Education Diplomas or T-levels as a general qualification for every undergraduate degree course.

Our inclusive admissions policy values breadth as well as depth of study. Applicants are selected on their own individual merits and offers can vary. If you would like to check the eligibility of your qualifications before submitting an application, please contact the Undergraduate Admissions Office for advice and guidance.