Creative Writing and English,BA (Hons)

Birkbeck’s BA Creative Writing and English is an acclaimed course ideal if you are an emerging writer keen to develop your creative writing practice and expand your knowledge of literature.

Why choose this course?

• This course offers you the chance to complement your creativity with critical reflection, learning about writers who think about culture and history and using your creativity to challenge or provoke readers to ask important questions.
• You will develop your writing practice and your ability to critically respond to texts, reading and interpreting the works of other writers in order to become a better writer.
• This BA Creative Writing and English is delivered by esteemed faculty and published writers with valuable industry connections and experience.
• The expertise of our faculty staff feeds into our courses. They include some of the UK’s leading critics, such as Marina Warner and Roger Luckhurst, and creative writers including novelist Luke Williams (Diego Garcia: a Novel), playwright and screenwriter David Eldridge (Beginning), playwright and screenwriter Daragh Carville (The Bay), poet, novelist and non-fiction writer Julia Bell (Attention), novelist Wes Brown (Breaking Kayfabe), and non-fiction writer Richard Hamblyn (The Sea: Nature and Culture).

What you will learn

In workshops you will develop your skills in writing drama, poetry, fiction and non-fiction, and in screenwriting, and deepen your understanding of these forms. In seminars and lectures, you will learn about storytelling, literary form, writing practices and literary cultures, and creative writing’s relationship to different cultural contexts. In Creative Writing, you will choose from a selection of modules offering practice and theory in drama, poetry, narrative fiction, script for film and TV, or experimental writing, eventually specialising in one of these genres for a final-year dissertation project. In English, you will take compulsory and option modules to help you think critically about texts, writing essays on a range of topics from feminism and sexuality to climate change and migration.

How you will learn

You will attend creative writing workshops where you will share your writing and read the writing of your peers, often alongside lecture content and published works. In these workshops you will learn how to discuss your writing-in-progress and gain regular feedback from faculty members and from fellow emerging writers on your degree. You will complement this learning with lectures and seminars from internationally renowned researchers and specialists, with whom you will study and discuss literature, history and ideas.

This course is available to study full- or part-time. It has an evening timetable with classes taking place in the evening.

Foundation Year

If you opt for the Foundation Year route, this will fully prepare you for undergraduate study. It is ideal if you are returning to study after a gap, or if you have not previously studied the relevant subjects, or if you didn't achieve the grades you need for a place on your chosen undergraduate degree. Find out everything you need to know about Foundation Years.