Creative Writing BA(Hons)

Course structure

Full-time students will have a minimum of nine hours' contact time a week in a range of lectures, seminars and workshops but they will be expected to carry out independent study for the rest of their time. Part-time study is possible and this can be tailored to suit individual needs.

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

Research informs all our teaching and you will benefit from the insight generated by our staff during their research. You will learn through lectures, seminars and workshops as well as small group and individual tutorials.

Our courses are reviewed and enhanced on an ongoing basis in order to make sure that what you learn with us is relevant and that your course enables you to develop appropriate skills. When you apply to study with us, we will inform you of any new developments in your chosen programme through Student View.

Creative Writing and Wellbeing pathway

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 and 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.

Year 1

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

Modules

• Stories and Storytelling

  How do stories create and communicate experiences, identities and cultural meaning? How do they work to perpetuate and challenge social structures? On this module you'll study fairy tales, myth, novels, short stories and visual narratives (for example, film, comics and graphic novels, gaming) to discuss these questions. Through reading and guided research you'll identify and pursue your own interests in critical, creative and reflective ways and produce a reading and research journal.

• Literature and Theory

  This module will introduce you to the key philosophical and theoretical approaches to the reading of literary texts, and situates that knowledge within a historical overview of literary criticism. By the end of the module you will be able to apply theoretical vocabulary and knowledge of critical concepts in the interpretation of literary works.

• Textual Encounters: Reading, Writing, Thinking

  How do texts make meaning? How can we understand the relationships between readers, writers, and texts? This module introduces questions crucial to the study of literature and culture through examining reading, writing and thinking as dynamic and dialogic cultural practices. You'll develop the skills necessary to become an effective writer, thinker and critic, enabling you to develop informed responses to texts and ideas in dialogue with others as members of a collaborative intellectual community.

• 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.

• Drama in Society

  This module will introduce you to drama as both performative and literary texts. The module approaches drama through practical, textual and theoretical readings, as well as through placing drama in its social and political contexts. How do plays engage with the world we live in today? The module focuses on twentieth century dramatic texts in order to explore the role and function of drama in society. You will look at, for example, naturalist drama, Brechtian drama, theatre of the absurd, feminist theatre, postcolonial theatre, and in-yer-face theatre.

• 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.

Year 2

Core modules

• The Art of Publishing
• Creative Writing: Process and Craft

Creative writing

• Literature in Practice
• Research and Practice

Creative writing and wellbeing

• Psychological Research Methods
• Critical Analysis
• 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
• Cinema and Society
• Photography
• Life Online: Digital Media and Culture
• Studying Travel Writing
• Queer Writing
• Video Documentary Project
• 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

Core modules

• Dissertation
• Final Year Conference

Creative Writing and Wellbeing

• Counselling Skills and the Therapeutic Relationship
• Critical Community Psychology

Options*

• Autoethnography
• Reading and Writing Landscape
• Creative Writing Project
• Images of War
• 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
• Public Journalism
• Autobiography and the Screen

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

Meet the team

Craig Jordan-Baker, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing. Winner of the 2018 Excellence in Facilitating and Empowering Learning Award. Craig’s drama has been widely performed, and his writing widely published. Craig's first novel The Nacullians was published in 2020. You can read more about Craig 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 Jess on her staff profile.

Ross Adamson, Senior Lecturer in Media and Digital Storytelling. His research interests are in narrative inquiry, documentary filmmaking and auto/biographical pedagogies. You can read more about Ross on his staff profile.

Julie Everton, Senior Lecturer, 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 Julie on her staff profile.

Dr Bea Hitchman, Lecturer. Beatrice's work focuses on gender, queer writing and historical fiction, concepts of 'voice', endings and writing the remote past. 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 is All of You Every Single One (2021). Read Beatrice's staff profile.

Craig Jordan-Baker

International requirements and visas

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Visas and immigration advice

Course fees

Info

The fees listed here are for full-time courses beginning in the academic year 2022–23.

Further tuition fees are payable for each subsequent year of study and are subject to an annual increase of no more than 5% or RPI (whichever is the greater). The annual increase for UK students, who are subject to regulated fees, will increase no more than the statutory maximum fee.

You can find out more about our fees in the university's student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

The tuition fee you have to pay depends on a number of factors including the kind of course you take, and whether you study full-time or part-time. If you are studying part-time you will normally be charged on a pro rata basis depending on the number of modules you take.

Campus where this course is taught

Accommodation

Local area

Maps

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