Master of Arts in Literature and Creative Writing

With the expertise of our scholars and creative practitioners, youll gain a distinctively unique degree which blends together the highly complementary disciplines of literature and creative writing. You will study a broad range of writing, from lyric poetry to contemporary fiction, whilst the flexible nature of our MA Literature and Creative Writing degree allows you to choose a creative-practice pathway or a theoretical pathway. Studying literature and creative writing at Essex means that you can build your degree around your interests.
Explore literature across time, geography and genre, while challenging yourself with our practice-based creative writing modules. Such modules, like our Creative Writing workshop, helps to hone your literary craft and technique, emphasising innovation and experimentation.
A good literature and creative writing degree opens many doors and our students have gone on to work in a number of careers such as writers, editors, publishers, scholars, university lecturers, teachers, journalists, arts administrators, theatre artistic directors, drama advisers, and translators.
Our University is one of only 11 AHRC-accredited Doctoral Training Centres in the UK. This means that we offer funded PhD studentships which also provide a range of research and training opportunities.

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

A 2.2 degree in Creative Writing, Theatre/Drama Studies, Literature, Film and Media Studies, Modern Languages , Art History, Music, Philosophy, History, American Studies, Performance studies, Journalism, Law, Politics and Sociology.
A degree with an overall grade of between 51 to 56% OR 5.4 to 6/10 OR 2.16 to 2.4/4 depending on the degree institution

Official transcript(s), in English or a certified translation of your academic results to date, showing marks or grades, must be provided at the time you make your application. (Transcripts are not required from current or previous University of Essex students, or from students who have previously completed a degree at Colchester Institute awarded by the University of Essex).
If you are applying to one of our taught courses in the Essex Law School or Human Rights Centre, a Pre-Registration Masters course, our MA Social Work, or the Essex MBA, you will need to provide a copy of your CV with your application.

IELTS - 7.0 overall with minimum component scores: Listening: 5.5 Reading: 5.5 Writing: 5.5 Speaking: 5.5
TOEFL IBT - 100 overall with minimum component scores: Listening: 17 Reading: 18 Writing: 17 Speaking: 20