Creative Writing BA(Hons)

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Why creative writing at Brighton?

• Staff are all active writers – you will learn from published novelists, poets and screenwriters
• Strong local publishing connections - we organise a programme of visiting writers and publishing professionals. Take a look at some of our prizes and partnerships
• Scrivener series of talks giving you the chance to speak to a professional writer about their work
• Focus on employability - we ensure you will graduate as an emerging writer with a strong skillset
• Alumni making a difference - graduates from our programmes include Paris Lees, Merci Roberts, Munroe Bergdorf and Tanaka Mhisi
• Excellent student support and a warm and encouraging community
• Weekly roundup of writing competitions and opportunities to encourage you to promote your work and consider future careers
• Workshops and spoken word events help you find your writing voice

Year 1

All students study the same modules in year 1, where you will develop your awareness of writing genres and work with local writers.

You will learn through lectures, seminars and workshops as well as small group and individual tutorials.

Modules

• Narratives of (Un)belonging

  Explore the cultural and critical concepts of belonging and unbelonging. You'll situate yourself as an emerging, socially responsible writer in the wider world by engaging with diverse writings that explore themes of migration and movement, home and displacement, search for a community, and our relationship to the environment and different spaces.

• The World, the Text and the Critic

  Taking inspiration from Edward Said’s book The World, the Text, and the Critic (1983), this module enables you to explore some of the key debates in contemporary literary studies. Organised around decolonial, feminist, queer, ecocritical and other approaches to texts, you'll develop critical writing skills and knowledge of social, cultural and political contexts in the interpretation of literary works and the wider world. 

• Writers on Writing

  Explore the concept of a professional writerly identity, and consider a ‘writing life’ in personal, local and global terms. Through studying and by contact with professional writers, you will investigate writing as self-expression, craft, process and profession; curating a writerly identity/ persona; developing your writing towards your future career; and the writing life and its implications on the global stage, for example as an act of resistance to inequalities.

• Storying The Self

  This module will introduce you to practices of storying the self in writing and digital media. Through creating a first person story combining audio script, music and still image, you will engage with the expressive complexities of autobiographical representation. The module will also give you the creative writing tools to experiment with storying the self in a variety of written genre.

• Staging Politics

  How might theatre engage audiences with the politics of class, race, gender, sexuality and the environment? You'll examine a range of plays in context, exploring how provocative stories develop through characterisation, stage directions, dialogue and dramatic action. Learn to think critically and creatively about theatrical texts and how to write scripts for stage in inclusive collaborations with your peers.

• Brighton Writes

  Brighton is a vibrant and unique place that has impacted on British and European culture, as well being at the forefront of social changes since the eighteenth-century. This module is a literary and cultural exploration of Brighton as a place. You will engage and connect with Brighton’s history, literary culture and your own creative writing practice. The module benefits from several city trips, which will bring learning materials to life.

Pier Review, a literary magazine run by our students, teachers and alumni

Year 2

There are placement opportunities available in the second year as well as field trips to theatres, museums, schools and community organisations. You are also welcome to study abroad after your second year.

Core modules

• Genres
• Stories that Transform: Reading and Writing for Change
• Professional Placement and Practice

Creative writing

• Research and Practice

Creative writing with wellbeing

• Critical Psychology
• Mental Health and Distress

Options*

• Writing for Stage, Radio and Screen
• Early Modern Literature
• Twentieth-Century Literary Experiments
• Literature and Art History
• Poetry and Process
• Introduction to Journalism
• Contemporary Narratives and Society
• Documentary Storytelling: Theory and Practice
• Studying Travel Writing
• Journalism
• Queer Writings
• Power and Persuasion
• Reading the Graphic Novel

You can also choose option modules from across our humanities and arts subjects.

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Final year

In the final year you take two core modules and choose from a selection of options. Publishers Epoque Press award a prize for the best dissertation.

Core modules

• Dissertation
• Brighton Rocks: Final Year Show

• Options*

• Autoethnography
• Reading and Writing Landscape
• Creative Writing Project
• From Script to Screen
• Community Placement: Theory in Practice
• Russian Literature
• Women’s Writing and Feminist Theory
• Restoration Drama
• Gothic: Texts and Contexts
• Victorian Sexualities
• Brighton Rocks
• Writing the Contemporary
• Post-colonial Literatures
• Post-war American Literature
• European Literatures and Film
• Adaptations
• (Re)Viewing Shakespeare
  • Literature and Philosophy

• Apocalypse, Utopia and Dystopia
• Popular Culture: Europe and Beyond
• Conflict, Migration, Borders
• Culture Wars: Class, Race, Gender and the Politics of Taste
• Literature and the World Wars
• Analysing Big Data: Quantitative Methods in Language Research
• Citizen Journalism: Theory and Practice
• Autobiography and the Screen

• Community Wellbeing and Social Justice**
• Counselling Skills and the Therapeutic Relationship**
• Mood and Anxiety Disorders in Children**
• Sexualities**
• Psychology of Poverty**
• Critical Addiction Studies**
• Cyberpsychology**
• Ecopsychology**

**available to students choosing Creative Writing with Wellbeing pathway

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Choose to explore wellbeing

You can choose to follow this pathway at the beginning of your degree, or at the end of year 1, and graduate with the degree title: Creative Writing with Wellbeing BA(Hons).

You'll explore specialist wellbeing-related modules alongside core creative writing modules and choose option modules in the subjects that interest you most.

You will link your knowledge of wellbeing to the craft of writing and consider texts and your own work in relation to political, social, cultural and medical theories. You will particularly focus on diversity and global challenges. You will identify underrepresented stories and question their absence, as well as thinking ethically and sensitively about addressing gaps in literature and writing that your work can fill.

Events such as our wellbeing walks will consider the impact of the outdoors and place on your writing and think about how eco-writing can raise awareness and spark dialogues. Our tutors will help you to develop techniques and skills involved in storytelling in a range of genres and encourage you to think about how your writing can and will impact on the world and how you can be part of, and also lead, better conversations about living well.

Through the university’s Centre for Arts and Wellbeing you will be connected with the latest national and international research and events that speak directly to your subjects. You will be encouraged to think how you can contribute to future work in these transformative and vital fields.

Placement

In year 2 of the Creative Writing degree course you can choose a placement module which will allow you to gain professional experience in industries such as publishing, broadcasting, social media marketing, PR and the charity sector. 

Recent placement hosts include:

• Action Medical Research
• Action Tutoring
• Airstream Photo Booth
• Brighton Dome and Festival
• British Forces Broadcasting Services
• Epoque Press
• Factory Films
• The Old Market Theatre
• Little Green Pig
• Men’s Health Magazine
• Prsnt.

In year 3 you can choose the Community Placement module aimed at further building your professional experience. This is 30 to 50 hours of voluntary work with a not-for-profit or community organisation. The placement is assessed and contributes to your degree.

Meet the team

Dr Bea Hitchman is a novelist whose work focuses on gender, queer writing and historical fiction. Her 2013 novel Petite Mort was nominated for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Prize, the Polari Prize, the HWA Debut Novel Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and serialised as a ten-part Radio 4 drama. Her second novel, All of You Every Single One (2021) was one of Vogue’s Best Novels of 2022, and was nominated for the Polari Prize and HWA Prize. Read novelist and writing tutor Beatrice Hitchman's staff profile.

Read a Q+A with Bea Hitchman where she talks about her career and how she got into writing novels and teaching.

Dr Craig Jordan-Baker is a writer of drama, fiction and non-fiction. His drama has been widely performed and his first novel The Nacullians was published in 2020 and his most recent work If the River is Hidden (2022) is hybrid work combining poetry and lyrical prose. He was the winner of the 2018 Excellence in Facilitating and Empowering Learning Award. You can read more about Craig's interests and background on his staff profile. You can read more about novelist and creative writing tutor Dr Craig Jordan-Baker on his staff profile.

Dr Jess Moriarty researches in the field of teaching writing practice, especially in auto-ethnographical academic writing and in creative writing with undergraduates. Another winner of the Teaching Excellence award, she is also co-founder of Work Write Live, which provides a range of writing short courses and volunteering opportunities for students to develop vocational and academic skills. You can read more about writer and creative-writing tutor Dr Jess Moriarty on her staff profile.

Read a Q+A with Jess Moriarty where she talks about her career and how she got into writing novels and teaching.

Dr John McCullough is a Costa-shortlisted, Polari prize-winning poet who focuses on mental health, loss, the body, queer politics, queer history and Brighton as a centre for unique LGBT+ subcultures. He has written three collections: The Frost Fairs (Salt, 2011) which won the Polari First Book Prize and was a Book of the Year for The Independent and a summer read for The Observer. His second, Spacecraft (Penned in the Margins, 2016) was shortlisted for the Ledbury-Forte prize and was a summer read for The Guardian. His latest collection, Reckless Paper Birds (Penned in the Margins, 2019), was shortlisted for the Costa. Read more about poet and creative-writing tutor Dr John McCullough on his staff profile.

Julie Everton is a playwright and script editor. She teaches drama, script writing, and screenwriting. Her research includes writing about real events/people, models of script development and autoethnography. You can read more about playwright and writing tutor Julie Everton on her staff profile.

Dr Craig Jordan-Baker

Reckless Paper Birds is the Costa-nominated book by lecturer Dr John McCullough.

Course fees

The fees listed here are for the first year of full-time study if you start your course in the academic year 2023–24.

You will pay fees for each year of your course. Some fees may increase each year.

UK undergraduate and some postgraduate fees are regulated by the UK government and increases will not be more than the maximum amount allowed. Course fees that are not regulated may increase each year by up to 5% or RPI (whichever is higher).

If you are studying part-time your fee will usually be calculated based on the number of modules that you take.

Find out more

• Fees, bursaries, scholarships and government funding info for UK and international undergraduate and postgraduate students
• Student finance and budgeting while studying
• About the university’s fees by checking our student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

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